Hi Aldo, I have been writing components for Flash and Flex for the last 5 years, created a JavaScript to VBScript converter, etc and although you can port things like C++ to AS3 there still can be a lot of additional work to do. For a demo like Quake, they are converting mostly graphics. As noted, the sound was not converted. When you add in other features such as http calls, database, etc believe me, you will still have additional work. While this is amazing, I see this more as converting certain libraries or certain projects for use with the Flex Framework. Or it might do 80% of the work to make an AIR application but you still have to resolve differences in the interpretation. This "code resolution" requires manual labor and knowledge of the Flash / Flex SDK API. If a company sees this product and assumes it will be a piece of cake to convert their project I would assume they have not been in this industry that long.
But's lets assume that if you could convert a app in one go, would you want to? "Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.", some famous guy. Best, Judah On 11/3/07, Aldo Bucchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > Everyday individuals and companies are porting libraries to the Flash > > platform that existed in other languages – those that were ported to > other > > languages before it. I don't think this is any revelation. The > capabilities > > of the Flash platform have expanded to make this possible. A c/cpp to AS > > processor doesn't change the situation. > > Well, but there is an associated cost to code porting which is > prohibitively high for most cases. Having a compiler lowers the > barrier significantly. > > > The real differentiator in our world is the Player, not the language. > > Yes, the player is fantastic. But how will adobe make money out of it > if... their business model ( with regards to the flash platform ) now > revolves around development tools and data/media infrastructure, not > the player itself which, licensed as you say it is, didn't cost me or > anyone I know a single penny. > > > But it took thousand and thousands of man-hours... > > Well... they did it from scratch. A new challenger would, in theory, > have tons of libraries at hand... state machines, animation, 3D > rendering engines, event frameworks, etc, and, last but not least the > whole flex framework to take ideas from. If you put skinning, data > management ( which we can replace by something probably already built > ) the framework is not unsurmountable. > Plus, you wouldn't even have to build that UI framework... because you > can just borrow the flex framework for free too. > > > and a significant amount of people to develop the framework and to > support it. > > Last thing I heard, there are tons of highly complex software that is > stable, under constant development and economically supported by > opensource ecosystems. > > > It's supported, it's backed by the thought leaders on the technology. > Sure, > > a team of very smart developers could put together a similar offering, > but > > they sure couldn't support it the same and they would always be playing > > catch-up to those that are developing the technology in the first place. > > True... support is a good thing. But, the current offer from LCDS is > not too hard to match, and there are broad standards that we could > code against, like SDO or even a simple RESTful architecture that > doesn't really require that much proprietary support. > All this seems like a big endeavour right now, but if we could port > protocol libraries or execute, say, a Ruby controller, it becomes > easier by orders of magnitude. > > > Their real focus on this stuff is the entire enterprise process and > > workflow. Their analyst meeting documents are always a great read and > give > > some pretty good insight into where they are positioned. Stuff like that > > Quake technology demo are to keep us happy, imho (and they did a dang > good > > job!), but It's miniscule in the grand scheme of what Adobe does. > > Yep, but I am looking forward here. > I might be wrong, but I think that Adobe is in a nice position to > become the defacto front end to the web "Operating System" if you may. > Online word processing, spreadsheets, image edition, etc. > And evidently this desktop to web transition will dramatically affect > document lifecycle. > > So they are, in a sense, putting things at risk by maximizing > portability and lending their technology for others to leverage > against their mainstream products. > > > In the end, it's a code converter. Anyone outside of Adobe could've done > it > > - they just did it first. Glad they're still the thought leaders. > > cheers, > > Don't underestimate the power of "I hadn't though about it before". > > start speculations: > > Why do you think they bought buzzword for? It is web based word > processor built on Flash/Flex, which they will most probably integrate > with their doc workflow suite. > Of course it has a lot of neat features like collaboration and > stylized aesthetics but, how hard would it be to get there starting > from a bunch of ported openoffice ( c++ ) modules? > A lot easier I think. > > The same for spreadsheets, image editing, web forms, etc. > > So, I think this is all wonderful because it speeds up the webization > of the desktop experience... but I think that coming up with, > developing, and supporting a workflow for fast c/cpp to as3 porting > will probably speed them a bit too much. > > Next thing you know, we will have a acrobatr.com* launching before > Adobe finishes its work on their flash based acrobat editor, if there > is such thing underway ;) > > * built using opensource tech of course. > > best, > Aldo > > > > > > On Nov 3, 2007 12:17 AM, Jon Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Basically, it is now business to create a library and become the first > > to have it in AS3... probably not an evident niche to the rest of us > > because AIR has not hit the streets yet, but I can bet more than one > > company is doing something in those lines. > > > > Everyday individuals and companies are porting libraries to the Flash > > platform that existed in other languages – those that were ported to > other > > languages before it. I don't think this is any revelation. The > capabilities > > of the Flash platform have expanded to make this possible. A c/cpp to AS > > processor doesn't change the situation. > > > > The real differentiator in our world is the Player, not the language. > > > > Of course you might argue that the flex framework is unparalleled with > > binding, repeaters, events, effects, etc. ... but isn't it opensource > > already? > > > > But it took thousand and thousands of man-hours and a significant amount > of > > people to develop the framework and to support it. I challenge anyone to > > attempt to do the same. If there is a business case to be made for > another > > tool that can match the capabilities of the Flex framework, then by all > > means. Have fun writing 200k of relatively bug-free code. :) > > > > And what about LCS?? > > > > It's supported, it's backed by the thought leaders on the technology. > Sure, > > a team of very smart developers could put together a similar offering, > but > > they sure couldn't support it the same and they would always be playing > > catch-up to those that are developing the technology in the first place. > > > > Adobe is the thought leader and the first adopter. > > > > If part of the player is OS ( correct me is im wrong ), the framework > > is OS, and now we can port code and run it in Flash... what's left for > > Adobe to profit from? Perhaps acrobat...? or Media Server? ( oh.. red5 > > ). > > > > The Player is not open source. It's a closed, licensed model. Another > very > > important point is that, from my understanding, it's against all EULAs > to > > write your own Player - write a public SWF runtime and they'll sue you. > :) > > It's a closed market and it's highly unlikely to change soon. > > > > To a certain degree, Adobe might be shooting themselves in the foot > > with this one. > > I don't think they are really. Adobe is a huge company. They control the > > Player, which is a necessary evil now they've gotten this far with the > > technology. > > > > The Flex line of products is a very small portion of Adobe's revenue. > The > > Flash IDE is way more ingrained in the market than a niche tool like > Flex. > > > > Their real focus on this stuff is the entire enterprise process and > > workflow. Their analyst meeting documents are always a great read and > give > > some pretty good insight into where they are positioned. Stuff like that > > Quake technology demo are to keep us happy, imho (and they did a dang > good > > job!), but It's miniscule in the grand scheme of what Adobe does. > > > > In the end, it's a code converter. Anyone outside of Adobe could've done > it > > - they just did it first. Glad they're still the thought leaders. > > cheers, > > > > jon > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > :::: Aldo Bucchi :::: > +1 858 539 6986 > +56 9 8429 8300 > +56 9 7623 8653 > skype:aldo.bucchi > > > -- > Flexcoders Mailing List > FAQ: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/files/flexcodersFAQ.txt > Search Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > >
