Sorry if this is long ... I have been burned by a few real projects. I have done a few projects over the last few years where the direction given was to use Flex.
I really believe that Flex is one of those tools that trys to get momentum from the developer out. Developers love Flex. They get cool looking stuff right out of the box. Not like xhtml/css/javascript, where they would have to do a lot without a designer around. My first experience with Flex was with an Electronic Medical Records company. The CEO read something about Flex, so we had to use it. (lame) We had outsourced some Flex gurus to come help us take a key part of our application, done with xhtml, css and javascript, and rebuild it in Flex. The original part of the app took about 3 months for myself and the developer to do. After giving the "gurus" all they needed, they told us it would take about 6 months to accomplish with 4 developers working on it! Unbelievable! Needless to say, we dropped them. Again, the CEO wanted us to use Flex, but with something else. We had a patient dashboard that had various panels of patient info, everything from vitals to allergies, etc. The panels were supposed to be customizable, so that you could arrange them the way you wanted, and save on the fly. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. These same flex developers took 4 weeks to produce the single page, at a cost of $15,000. We wanted to add some charting and other features, the gurus came back with another $15k bid. I could not believe that there was any benefit to all this. I spoke to my boss, and we decided to build it with xhtml/css/javascript and show them up. In a days time I had a fully working front end prototype with all the bells and whistles that the page needed to fulfill the requirements of the original pae, and everything that we needed for the second round of changes. The executive team was shocked that this could be done in a day. It took a developer 2 more days to integrate it, and we were done. I am currently working at a telecommunications company, and developers decided to use Flex, for the reasons I mentioned above. It has taken forever for the 3 developers to create this application. I was able to build it as I had in the previous project it a few weeks. So, In my experience, it is not a good tool. There are some simple things that the developers had to create custom stuff for Flex to do, like wrap text! I think that Adobe is using Thermo now to get to the Designer side of things. But even then from the one demo that I saw online. it produces code like Frontpage did in the day. Sections have weird names, and it is not at all meaningful. Sorry to rant about it, but I have just had such a horrible experience with Flex. Grady Kelly http://www.gradykelly.com On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 4:14 PM, Matthew Nish-Lapidus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So, all this talk about Thermo and how it integrates into Flex... but > do people use Flex for real projects? I have yet to see any web > app/site that really uses Flex for an RIA.. most apps still use (and > will use IMHO) web standard technologies like html, css, javascript, > etc... > > What are people suing Flex for? intranet apps? industrial? anything? > and in that light, is the Flex integration with Thermo really that big > a selling point? > > On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Dan Harrelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > Smitha makes some good points. I agree that from what I've seen of > > Thermo, it will be a good prototyping tool. It's time that we get some > > decent tools for mocking up real interactions that have movement. It's > > such a pain that so many of us have to use "flat" tools like InDesign > > or Visio or Illustrator or Photoshop or Graffle or, or or. > > > > I think that Thermo will position itself as the high fidelity > > prototyping tool. Given the likely high price-point and the expected > > high-end feature list, I doubt that it'll be the tool we reach for to > > draw a quick box and arrow. Thermo will probably be the tool we reach > > for when it's time to spend a couple of hours designing something more > > interactive. > > > > I am also looking forward to better design tools than are available in > > Flex Builder. I find that the GUI design palette in Builder is what > > I'd expect from a tool aimed at developers. You quickly find yourself > > in the code view working on MXML or ActionScript. Thermo will allow > > designers, and possibly even developers to accomplish many of the same > > interactions without diving into code. > > > > If they get it right, Adobe will be able to offer us a great workflow > > as well. We'll be able to pull in assets seamlessly from Photoshop and > > Illustrator. We'll also be able to round trip an RIA between Flex > > Builder and Thermo. Yes, I foresee that Flex Builder will remain in > > the ecosystem. > > > > <plug> > > What I'm most excited about is getting the Thermo team from Adobe up > > on stage during my workshop at UX Week this August. > http://www.uxweek.com/workshops/beyond-wireframes-making-interactive-sketches > > </plug> > > > > ...Dan > > > > On Mar 21, 2008, at 5:32 AM, Charusmitha Ram wrote: > > > > > Oleg, > > > What is most compelling to me, as an Interaction Designer, is that > > > Thermo > > > would allow me to do rapid prototyping using some very simple > > > interactions. > > > I usually create my wireframes in InDesign and publish them as PDFs. > > > Thermo > > > would save a lot of time and effort when I need to create these > > > click-thrus. > > > I also think this is very useful for high fidelity prototypes. > > > Whether or not the built-in interactions are scalable enough for > > > actual > > > development needs is yet to be tested. But at this point it looks > > > quite > > > promising as a prototyping tool. > > > > > > - Smitha Ram > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > > > > -- > Matt Nish-Lapidus > work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.bibliocommons.com > -- > personal: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
