Quick shot at your questions:
1. What type of client will benefit from Flex? Is it only for large
corporations, enterprise level apps? Will my wedding photographer client
care?
It's not only for enterprise level apps (Flex 2). It's for apps. Internet
apps of any kind, which are fast to develop and work everywhere.
2. To what degree does flex allow for a customized look? Can you do
anything you'd do with Flash 8? Will flex development most likely all
look the same?
You can't do anything you can do with Flash 8. This is why Flash 8 IDE will
keep getting upgrades and include AS3 support in future.
Flex isn't something to make cartoons or complex animations with for ex. :)
Components are easy to customize with CSS and you can make your own skins
and components as well. You can import Flash 8 assets you drew in Flash too.
3. If I ignore flex, zorn/eclipse, c#, java, etc and just stick with my
beloved flash 8, will there still be a market for me?
Of course, hehe. Flex is for one kind of content and Flash Authoring for
another.
But if you're intok coding, I'd say check it out since you may fall in love.
The idea is that both are complementary - each does it's stuff and if you do
both designing and coding they can be a great team.
4. MM says they want to add an additional 1 million new developers to the
current pool of an estimated 2 million developers. If they are
successful, how do you think this will affect your market share? Will it
generate more opportunity because there will be an increased awareness to
the power of "flash"? or will the market become saturated with
developers?
Developers will grow in numbers if there's more demand for Flash content, so
I think there will be enough job for everyone.
5. How is AS3 different from AS2? Would you say radical? Or is it
something that really only the mega geek (said with respect and love!)
will appreciate?
Let's start with something the non-mega geek will appreciate: 10x to 30x
average speed increase.
Means something that made Flash Player 6/7/8 stay stuck for 10 seconds ...
will take less than a second on Flash 8.5 with AS3.
Also it's more consistent, feature rich and logical in the way things are
layed out. You can do stuff faster, better and not waste your time with
stupid hacks. It also gets features normally only found in "real" languages,
since after all it's for the first time a real powerful language since Flash
existed ;)
Hope that helps the fears and anxiety go away :)
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