So I just had the chance to work on projects involving Adobe Flex 2.
I used Flex to implement a couple of RIA (Rich Internet Application) plug-ins to some Java Enterprise software product.
I should say that Flex did indeed give me some pleasant development experience as compared to traditional JavaScript/AJAX. Flex provides high level programming constructs as well as an incredibly easy way to build responsive UI. Of course, the pleasantry is probably brought about by the fact that I was using their $500 IDE, Flex Builder--which might remind us of JBuilder but it was apparently build on-top of Eclipse which is, by the way, free. As a matter of fact, Flex Builder also works as a standard Eclipse plug-in (supposedly supported by versions 3.x and above, but I was only able to successfully use it on 3.1).
I'm pretty much a "noob" when it comes to Flex but here are a few cool things I've experienced with it...
As opposed to JavaScript, hell, you can debug in Flex--that by itself is reason enough for me to prefer Flex over JavaScript.
Flex applications are actually just Flash movies embedded in vanilla HTML, this means that a browser is required to have Flash Player installed. There are advantages and some small disadvantages about it...
The good thing is that incompatibilities with different browsers are reduced if not completely removed, ever developed AJAX to support IE and Firefox? It sucks big time.
The bad thing of course is that you need to download Flash Player before you are able to use any applications made in Flex, ever heard of YouTube? I thought so... well yeah, you most likely have Flash Player already installed.
Flex is free. It is advisable to use Flex Builder while developing with Flex, but you aren't required to do so. The compiler is currently available for free, and just like a lot of other programming languages, all you need is a text editor. Good luck!
Flex is faster than HTML, you can display tons of data in your Flex application yet it won't bother the browser as much as rendered HTML would.
Flex isn't really just for browser applications. You can also use Flex to develop stand-alone desktop applications. But yeah, I'd rather use Java instead...
Flex offers some pretty neat UI components.
Uhm you should be warned though, after a couple of small projects, I found out a few minor things you might want to consider...
Controlling scrollbars in Flex is a freaking pain in the ass! I expect a "UI framework" such as Flex to at least have this perfected, but once I tried moving the scrollbars around, I was really disappointed. Looking at a few web postings, it seems that there are still a hand-full things that Adobe needs to address in terms of Flex UI controls.
The Data Binding concept in Flex is cool! Really cool that you might build your application around the concept, until it's too late and you realize how buggy it is. In my experience, data binding failed in the most critical of components; introducing some "workarounds" really destroyed my original design. To be fair, I should say that I might have been too assuming without having deeper knowledge of the concept.
Finally...
Flex Builder, a $500 IDE built on-top of an essentially free software which is Eclipse. Since I paid $500 for it (actually, my company did), I should ask: why doesn't CTRL-F work? 2GB of RAM? Geez!
at 11:01 PM
