> Wow. Honestly this is fantastic Dave. I wasn't trying to be a pain in the > ass - if you refer back to my post about stakeholders and wishing more would > start at the problem-space definition and goals first - things would be alot > better. With the things you set down - it means that a team can get through > those, and then start exploring solutions in a more effective manner.
No problem guys! I am glad it helped in a small way! You have to understand, I spend a LOT of time (a couple hours every day) thinking about these issues and how people can design and implement the best possible user experiences while still fitting the project into a mold that meets the needs of the end users, the client, and of course... the team who is doing the design and development :) There really is no right answer to the whole Flex v other technologies question. It really just depends on the specifics of the situation. One thing I will say though: If you don't know ActionScript 3, and/or your team isn't being led up by someone with an actual software development background... take caution in jumping into a Flex project. Thankfully, there are folks out there (to whom I could refer you) that could jump in and help out on a project to get a team up to speed, etc. > > The biggest advantages of using the Flash player as a runtime for your > > RIA as opposed to using AJAX: > > > > 1) Write once, deploy cross platform > > > Okay. > > > :) > > > 2) You can turn your Flex application into a desktop application without > > much code refactoring (using AIR). > > > OSX/Vista/Linux ? > OSX = yes vista = yes Linux = In the works. Adobe has an internal build that works. Should be soon! The best part is that you could create your application once, and then make desktop builds for all three platforms. It is the promise that suckered us into Java back in the day (sort of). It actually works though, and that is quite cool. > > 3) With the evolution of browsers, you can be less concerned about how > > to migrate your code to keep up with changes in the Document Object Model in > > AJAX, as the Flash player is backwards compatible. > > > Your right - this is a pretty big issue that always costs development time > when you have to support IE/FF/Safari on Linux/OSX/MS and you end up going > to the lowest common denominator - but still developers have to hack to get > the right outcome for all flavors - especially when they work for/with me. > Amen to that. The worst I've seen is a team massaging code to work with IE, Firefox, and Safari and then having MSIE 8 come out and need to be reckoned with. at least with the Flash player, you are talking about 1 single runtime that is the same cross-platform. Granted there are always little things you might need to tweak, but that really is just for more advanced types of application logic or potentially integration with the flash object and JavaScript, etc, etc. > > > 4) The Flash player now has hardware acceleration... so you can build > > UI's that look and feel the way YOU want the to, and not be limited by your > > development technology > > 5) 3-d integration (using papervision or another framework) > > 6) Handles LOTS of data much, much, much better (data grids with tons of > > rows, etc) > > > > No argument here - for dynamic visualization of large datasets - I can see > that this is far superior - actually - the types of visualization I am > imagining are only possible in Flex/Flash or in WPF. > Right on. We've done a lot of testing with AJAX and big sets of data. For the most part, it's a no-go. Don't get me wrong (again!)... AJAX rocks and everything has a place and time. But this is not an AJAX sweet spot :) >>Thanks for the extensive answer. No problem! If anyone else has Flex-esque questions, please feel free to drop me a line. I am glad to be able to help. Dave ________________________________________________________________ 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
