I'm not saying that it's difficult to use OSFlash tools, I'm merely stating that lacking documentation that considers more than one technology at a time (tools and code) creates a barrier to using the tools. Think about what Carlos' article about getting started did for OSFlash over a year ago. It was helpful because it gave you a step by step process to get things running fast with MTASC, swfmill and ASDT. But you have to go off OSFlash to find it.
Open source projects are generally more difficult to get going than commercial products and developers are accepting of that fact. However, the most successful OS projects do a great job at this 'getting started' stuff (Haxe comes to mind). Ruby on Rails isn't better than a lot of web frameworks. It gets it's a lot of it's buzz because when you go to the homepage, you can click one of three buttons to get started. Twenty minutes later, you're at hello world.
I just thought of this now, but maybe OSFlash needs a page like this linked from a big icon on the main OSFlash page. What do you guys think?
Regards,
Tim
On 9/5/06, Ray Chuan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
On 9/5/06, Tim Scollick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm also in this boat, Ralf. Look at how many java developers are piling on
> Flex, most of whom have never learned the Flash IDE. You could do the same
> thing now with OSFlash tools (ASDT or FlashDevelop) and ActionStep or
> ASWing, but the learning curve is very steep because 'getting started'
> guides are difficult to find.
Are you referring to code or tools? Granted, code may be more
difficult without "getting started" guides, but tools are rather
easier. You can guess what it does by running it without any options
or /? or --help.
>
> On 9/5/06, hank williams < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I agree with mark on this.
> >
> > Hank
> >
> > On 9/5/06, Mark Winterhalder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Yes, the Flash IDE makes it much easier to understand the principles
> > > we consider basic -- after all, you've got them visually in front of
> > > you, can experiment with MovieClip hierarchies easily, and so on. But
> > > it's not always an option, and not always necessary.
> > > I don't see the osflash projects as a mere extension to the Adobe
> > > tools. Depending on what you want to do and what kind of background
> > > you have, they can be a true alternative. In any case, whe shouldn't
> > > lock out developers without a "classical" Flash background.
> > > Of course every prominent developer started with the Flash IDE --
> > > until recently there was no viable alternative if you wanted to
> > > produce an SWF. Well, thinking about it, I don't know if you consider
> > > Daniel prominent, but if MTASC hadn't given him the opportunity to
> > > create SWFs on Linux, he wouldn't have gotten into it and wouldn't
> > > have come up with swfmill. His experience with the IDE is limited to
> > > downloading the trial and then never using it because he didn't like
> > > to reboot to Windows.
> > > What I'm trying to say is that we can only gain from opening up to
> > > developers from other backgrounds without insisting on them learning
> > > it the classical way, just because "it was always done like that". The
> > > threshold should be as low as possible.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > >
> > > On 9/5/06, Ralf Bokelberg < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > Hm, it was always my understanding, that osflash grew out of the need
> > > > for tools, which Macromedia/Adobe couldn't oder didn't want to
> > > > provide. Naturally these tools are not for beginners. That's what the
> > > > Flash ide is for. I think, if you never get your hands dirty in the
> > > > Flash ide, you are missing something, esspecially as a beginner. Every
> > > > prominent developer started with the flash ide. Remember, it's not
> > > > that i want to sell the Flash ide. It's about learning and
> > > > understanding the whole concept of flash, eg. timelines, frames, etc.
> > > > I think, if you never worked with the Flash ide, you'll never
> > > > understand Flash completely.
> > > >
> > > > So the point is, people should start with the Flash ide, and if they
> > > > encounter serious problems in their workflow, they should come back to
> > > > osflash and see, what solutions are provided.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Ralf.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > osflash mailing list
> > > [email protected]
> > > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > osflash mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
> >
>
>
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>
>
>
--
Cheers,
Ray Chuan
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