Elliot,
Thanks for your thoughts as well. One of your points that hit me was
that Laszlo is fun to code with. That's one area I'd like to explore a
bit more - the actual development process. How do the different
platforms/architectures (Flash/Laszlo/Flex) compare on the following points:
1. Ease of coding
2. Development time
3. Fun factor
4. "Pull-your-hair-out" factor (encountering/diagnosing/overcoming
strange architectural quirks)
5. Any other differentiating factors?
For ease of comparison, let's assume that in the case of Laszlo, we're
targeting the Flash runtime.
-Rich
Elliot Winard wrote:
Tiago,
But the big thing of laszlo for me is really the philosophy behind
it. It is
supposed to be markup language for RIA that could then be presented in
several media, like flash, dhtml, svg (who knows silverlight or
javafx.. or
android in the future) and they are taking the first steps in that
direction.
If they make it, it's great, cause you do some code and can run it in
several runtime libs and now being stuck to flash or something else.
The last few releases of OpenLaszlo already provide a way to output to
DHTML! Of course, the current compile doesn't provide a way to access
Flash-specific goodies like embedded fonts and media streaming when
you compile to DHTML. But I don't think that Flex provides any option
to develop for end-users that don't have the most current (or very
recent) release of Flash.
But, if you don't mind only using flash as the output and you need high
performance from your application algorithms and models, you should give
Flex/AS a try.
I agree. It's a matter of doing a cost-benefit analysis of the
different options. It's both a blessing and a curse to be tied to the
latest Flash runtime. Personally, I think it's pretty powerful to be
able to throw together a few dozen lines of code and build an RIA.
It's also pretty cool to be able to build a large application with
*tens of thousands* of lines of code. Check out the Webtop platform
that what we're currently working on. [0]
You don't have to give exclusivity to any of the two!.. :) just use
them in
the best they can give you.
Amen! Laszlo code is also just plain fun to write most of the time.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I currently work as a Sr. Software Engineer at Laszlo
Systems. I worked at Macromedia on the releases of Flex 1.0 & 1.5
before I came to Laszlo.
Cheers,
-e
[0] http://www.gowebtop.com
