Well... at least I don't feel alone in my opinions. Cheers,
Kevin -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Mauvière Sent: October 18, 2005 1:19 PM To: Flashcoders mailing list Subject: [Flashcoders] Macromedia unveiling Flex 2 and Flash 9 :communication or cacophony ? It was with a mixture of interest and irritation that I read Macromedia's announcements about Flex and Flash Player 8.5 and the ensuing reactions. The valid assertion that "Flex is a tool for building RIAs (Rich Internet Applications)" is gradually becoming widely interpreted as "If you want to do 'rich' (fantastic, impressive or professional?) things with Flash you need to buy Flex." Many of the people who have been fortunate enough to be able to play with Flex since it was released are now self-declared RIA experts, most of whom are extremely pleasant, incredibly easy to reach and deal with others with the utmost humility and modesty. (I am really going to miss our Iteration 2 friends in this respect...) We could begin by debating the concept of RIA and the fact that it is the new Grail of the present-day Internet. By no means am I sufficiently familiar with the subtleties of the English language to fully understand the nuances of the adjective 'rich'. By 'rich' I understand 'souped up', 'brimming over' (with functions and information), 'complex' in terms of interactions, and I would imagine that it quite expensive, etc. Personally, I prefer 'sexy', 'shrewd', 'fluid', 'educational' or 'intelligent' to 'rich'. Actually, most Flex applications have this characteristic compartmentalized appearance, like a 1970s living room bookcase, with cabinets, drawers, framed photographs, multitudes of lists and datagrids which provide a talking point. On the subject of sobriety, are you familiar with Google Maps? I started using Flash quite a long time (almost eight years) ago because it was fast, powerful, visually appealing and there was no need to buy server software for 15,000 dollars to produce dynamic maps. All you had to do was connect to a good old database. At the time it performed miracles. These days we have to fight through a myriad of increasingly large and unwieldy component libraries. I have never been able to start using V2 components because my Internet clients do not want any files larger than 100 KB for a public-access website. When Flash MX2004 was released in its basic and professional versions, I immediately bought the professional version because I really wanted to feel like a true professional. When someone pointed out that a really serious Flash development was being made in OOP and integrally in external classes, without putting any objects or drawings at all on the scene, I gritted my teeth and continued regardless. I fiddled around a bit: mycb._y=8? too high. mycb._y=15: oops, too low! I used the Event Dispatcher function like there was no tomorrow and put Delegate.create everywhere in my code. It looked fantastic and I felt really free! Of course, I bought Flash 8 Pro, which I use mainly as a compiler and debugger. I have now learned that using Flash 8 IDE for compiling purposes is rather old-fashioned. I was told I should use MTASC and, of course, Flex builder. I will soon be able to throw my Flash 8 Pro away. Do I need Flash 9? Lastly, the story of the Flash Player 8.5 has completely worn me out. You fight for major tenders, explaining that Flash is now a mature, stable product that works with all browsers and operating systems, and that we are waiting until the latest version has spread everywhere before switching to the new one. And one month after Flash 8 is released, there are more and more announcements and no one understands anything any more. Yesterday, a smart aleck computer specialist who is always abreast of new developments said to me "So, that's it. If we take your Macromedia Flash, will we need to buy the Flex for 15,000 dollars in a year's time?" - The first demo that I assemble for a client using Flash 8 makes all his browsers crash, although I had vigorously assured him that Flash never crashes. I had made the mistake of trying to impress him with contextual menus. - I was not immediately aware that Windows NT4 and a few other environments were not supported. - I shouted it from the rooftops that the Flash/JavaScript communication was now reinforced; yet unfortunately it only works with really up-to-date browsers. I congratulate Mike Chambers and Christian Cantrell for their kit. It is a great initiative but what is the status of this investment with Macromedia? What is Macromedia's obligation to truly consolidate this Flash integration in the browser, also for Flash 7 and IE 5.5, etc.? - It is a good idea to have bitmap functions, but Flash's original contribution is vectors and there is still not the slightest function for editing a shape after Actionscript has been used. If you want to change the coordinates of a polygon node you have to redraw the whole thing. There are still no dotted lines and you can only alter the line thicknesses, which are ridiculously still integers (1, 2, 3, etc.). The only two good aspects of Flash 8 for a cartographer are the much-improved memory deallocation and the antiscale option which enables you to zoom in on a map without the line thickness varying. Fortunately, the SVG people have self-destructed on their own because we are still a long way away from the descriptive finesse of SVG. - The speech about accessibility is very difficult to read - you can say that again! Who is familiar with Microsoft Active Accessibility? It is almost impossible to convince a public client that Flash is credible in this field. All of this makes me think that Flash 8 was released too soon, as the creation cycle for a new version was not complete; lots of things remain unfinished or incorrectly finished. But I do have a lot of respect for the Macromedia developers who have impossible constraints to resolve (putting more and more into a little gadget that works everywhere). However, I feel that short-term political considerations (fending off Sparkle or Ajax, making one last stand before being taken over by Adobe, etc.) have taken precedence over the former shrewdness (slow but sure progress). Nevertheless, I can take some solace in the shrewd, long-term analyses of people like John Dowdell or Tinic Uro. Tinic, in particular, asks extremely pertinent questions about Flash's strengths and weaknesses: (http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/10/next-generation-flash-player-user.html). Right, I understand that the ultra-fantastic super asv3 with the new ultra-fast virtual machine took longer than expected. But please, my dear brilliant Macromedia friends, make your communications clearer and consider the end clients we are working for, all the more so because you already have your foot in the door of Adobe and soon we may need to familiarise ourselves with a new product segmentation. Eric Mauvière www.geoclip.net _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
