Just to throw another spanner into the works: Scott's argument seems to be that HTML/CFMX UI's aren't ideal, and it seems like a lot of extra work to develop all these dynamic form/validation solutions using xml when there is a better solution. I.e. Flex.
The problem being that flex is quite expensive and very few companies a willing to pay for it. My question is, if your requirements (or the success/failure of your product) demand you need to have the rich user experience that flash provides. What about Central? >From what I see of flex there are a lot of components out of the box giving you instant access RIA's but eventually you will have to develop your own flash components to give you the extra widgets you need. So you could argue that Flex doesn't really give you that much more of an advantage (US 20k worth) of not requiring flash development to produce RIA's..... -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Spike Sent: Thursday, 29 July 2004 1:00 PM To: CFAussie Mailing List Subject: [cfaussie] Re: Flex and UIs WAS ( Re: the big oo train, on the right track?) >My beef isn't with anyone specific. My beef is with the >overall concept >of web-based software. Its got a lit of requirements that aren't meet. >Macromedia have a winning lotto ticket, but are holding it reserved to >the richer folks. To me that pisses me off, but i can and will >live with it. > >My overall question put forward wasn't a winge per say, its a question >as to why we as cfmx developers seem to constantly make our >own language >to counteract limitations of HTML/CFMX. Ie Rolling our own XML to >dynamically build it. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do that because I'm looking for a good way to increase the encapsulation in CFMX apps. The problem being that you often have entities that need to be presented and updated via a HTML interface. The update process also needs validation both client and server side, and the data needs to be persisted to a database that may or may not be pre-existing. I have used XML as the base definition for entities in the past, but I've never been able to come up with a solution that provided me with what I wanted for multiple projects, so I've more or less put that on the back burner for now. >Despite your claims to the contrary, the fact >> that no-one else has come up with anything near to Flex either as a >> standard, as an open source initiative, or as a product >should give you and >> idea that it really isn't as easy as you're making out (I'm >not counting >> Microsoft and windows forms/Avalon because that isn't a product yet). > >It isn't? last time i looked in MSDN you can download it (if >you have an >MSDN account). Yeah, but you probably aren't going to build mission critical apps with it. That was what I meant. Besides, that's not really an alternative to HTML, it's more of an alternative to the currrent way of building windows apps. > >Its not a question of whether or not its as easy i as i think. >To answer >that, it is easy as i think why? because we all seem to be f#9kin >experts at rolling our own XML/CFC solution to handle it? if it was so >hard, then why people like taco/myself/xyz all rolling these XML >solutions to do our UI. To answer that, because we do think >its an easy >solution that hasn't been meet yet or meet within our price >range. Is it >a success? ask anyone who's done one and if they are truthful >and re-use >it a lot, then yes it is. Why not give out some incentive to get all >this b.s into one package? its a nice dream, but a good >question to ask >don't you think? If you think it's that easy I'd suggest you put it out there and let everyone else see how to do it because, like I said, I haven't come up with anything that actually saves me a whole lot of time from project to project. Visuals are my thing, its >what blows my hair back, and people like some of my "admin >systems" for >it. Great, i don't expect that same level of need for all >applications, >but if in theory my application worked exactly the same as an app you >did (code for code) only my UI is much more visually stimulating, who >would win? point is we often do actually judge a book by its cover we >just choose not to admit it. I won't disagree that your apps may be more visually appealing, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than that. > > >> Again, I'm betting that it won't be quite what you're after >so we'll be back >> to a round of questions like "why couldn't they have done it >like this?" The >> answer is that there either aren't enough people asking for >that to justify >> putting it in, or it isn't as simple as you think. > >Thats the nature of evolution. We do it now. We got pissed off >having to >walk everywhere, so we figured out a way to make beasts do it >for us. We >then got sick of them wondering off all the time or dying on us, so we >made a car. Now we are sick of having to fuel the cars all the >time and >having to drive them on land, so now we want hover cars. We >forget that >if it weren't for people pushing the envelope, we'd all still >be walking >on our knuckles. Yes, and just how much did the early cars cost? They certainly weren't sold at rock-bottom prices so that the manufacturers could "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap". > >THat inlies my underlining point. I keep seeing people roll their own >XML solution to emulate or touch on products like >FLEX/LONGHORN/XUL, yet > i ask? WHY? Because we've seen that it can be done and we want a piece of the action I suspect. > >It was more of a "has anyone else asked this question aswell" That wasn't how it came across to me. It could have been because I'd just read your most recent post on Mossy blog. Sorry if I misinterpereted you. >- it some >how went downhill and while my current jobs pissing me off >with regards >to the projects complexities, its privelleged information and has been >forced into this thread, resulting it being out of context to >what i was >asking and now my laundry is nicely aired on CFAUSSIE :) No more so than you've been airing it yourself on your blog ;) so thanks for >that one :D - why not next time kick me in the nuts :D I might, but I've only got little short legs and they don't reach all the way to Brisbane :p Spike --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/ --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/
