Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Title: Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature? Steven, You cited that you know of teams of 30+ developers using Cairngorm on projects today, implying that there are multiple Flex projects with these characteristics. I was curious if those projects have resulted in production (released) software, and if the companies could be publicly cited? My experience in the Java/J2EE world was miserable when teams bloomed beyond 10, 12 people. In fact, I cant think of a single multi-million dollar Java project with over a dozen people that succeeded, as measured strictly by software that was done close to on time, close to on-budget, close to meeting expected business functionality and finally, absolutely meeting the companies expected ROI prior to starting the project looking back. Literally every project that I was on that had under a dozen developers met these metrics. In fact, one project in particular had 8 engineers on it, and it meet managements goals, and then it exceeded them substantially to the tune of 8 figures. Yes, flame bait, my position is that too many developers means too many hands in the cookie jar, if you will, and a project destined to fail regardless of tools or technology or methodology. Im very conflicted by your positioning in this response, and thats why Im asking you if you can remove the veil on these clients you reference. The terms agile practices and 30+ developers are paradoxical, wouldnt you agree? Agile, by definition, is about developing software in short iterations of 1 to 4 weeks. 9 women cant have a baby in 1 month, no matter what they try. Likewise, I cant imagine the project management nightmare of having 30 developers crank out iterations in 1 to 4 weeks. Agile development promotes face to face communication over written documents. That must be one helluva meeting room to have 30 developers ~LOL~. Agile development contends that customers and engineers work together in a single workspace, some refer to it as the bullpen though we always preferred the term Bat Cave! 30 engineers plus customers in one space doing 1 to 4 week iterations? Perhaps these folks are doing pair programming (!) so there are really only 15 engineers on the project ~LOL~. Im not looking to pick a fight with this post, but merely inquiring about the feasibility for you and your team to publish white papers that back these positions up. Until then, Im afraid Ill have to treat these positions as suspect because they are counter-intuitive and go against every bit of my experience and likely the experiences of other seasoned J2EE developers. On a slightly different topic, the Core J2EE patterns the book with the Sun logo splashed all over its cover **mostly** documents patterns (used extremely loosely because I content that the only real patterns were those introduced by the classic GoF book) that were often fixes or work-arounds for missing functionality in the J2EE spec and/or container design flaws. This isnt meant to belittle the engineers that worked on the related J2EE specs, but merely that you have to start somewhere and there were gaps along the way the core J2EE patterns helped plug the proverbial holes. To recap, Id be very interested in seeing you and the former iteration::two team deliver white papers that discuss this environment in particular you have repeatedly cited now in a number of posts- large projects with dozens of developers using agile methodologies and J2EE-adapted patterns (with or without Cairngorm- my inquiry isnt about Cairngorm per se) in a Flex environment. In particular, Id hope that these papers would cite metrics that our community could agree on metrics like those I cited earlier so that proper conclusions can be reached based on fact, not supposition or unproven statements. Until papers are published with legitimate metrics that depict success demonstrated by what I view as a counter-intuitive position, I feel compelled to cast doubt upon your claims, to both the FlexCoders community and to my Flex prospects and clients. Best, Jason __ Jason Weiss Cynergy Systems, Inc. Macromedia Flex Alliance Partner http://www.cynergysystems.com Email: jasonDOTweissATcynergysystemsDOTcom__nospam Office: 866-CYNERGY On 11/27/05 4:20 PM, Steven Webster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mykola, Totally agree but EJB was also first technology for enterprise development in Java and it worth us to be blind for a 5 years. EJB was the same overcomplicated that Cairngorm is and as far as I understand Cairngorm uses the same patterns and fully inspired by J2EE. EJB and Cairngorm have nothing in common; both are frameworks, one as you know is a (excuse the simplification) framework for object persistence, the other is a framework microarchitecture for RIA. That the EJB spec is overcomplicated does not mean that Cairngorm is, just because both can be called frameworks or both have reference to J2EE. Cairngorm does borrow heavily from the body of work
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Hi Steven Thanks again for the comments. Lets stop the discussion about frameworks, my opinion about Core J2EE patterns etc because its a religious controversy. I will share my results when I'll be ready. The question of this topic was not Cairngorm or something else but: Is Flex mature enough now? What are our chances if we need to build huge RIA application in 7 month using Flex? I'd like to hear about project already completed or about to being completed by teams of at least 20 developers. Also we cannot rely on the Flex2 since it uses 8.5 player that will not be widespread by the moment we need to launch. WBR, MykolaOn 11/28/05, Steven Webster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mykola, Totally agree but EJB was also first technology for enterprise development in Java and it worth us to be blind for a 5 years. EJB was the same overcomplicated that Cairngorm is and as far as I understand Cairngorm uses the same patterns and fully inspired by J2EE. EJB and Cairngorm have nothing in common; both are frameworks, one as you know is a (excuse the simplification) framework for object persistence, the other is a framework microarchitecture for RIA. That the EJB spec is overcomplicated does not mean that Cairngorm is, just because both can be called frameworks or both have reference to J2EE. Cairngorm does borrow heavily from the body of work that was performed with Core J2EE Patterns; however, it is not applying J2EE to Flex, it is recognising that many of the patterns that the Core J2EE pattern catalogue included, are patterns that can be applicable to RIA development with Flex (MXML and ActionScript). Note I say *can* be applied to RIA, not *must* be applied to RIA. There are many ways to skin a cat. Apologies to cat lovers. Insert annoying animal of your choice. do not repeat previous mistakes. You do not need to get things that complex like thy are now with Commands FrontControllers and other stuff. I think that's quite a bold statement. Perhaps you do not need them, and I absolutely agree that many many projects do not need Commands, Front Controllers or other stuff. However, I have worked on and with several projects that *have* benefited from these patterns and the architecture that the collaboration of these patterns introduced. Was this solution the *only* way we could have addressed the problems we faced ? Of course not ... There are as many different ways of doing these things as there are talented architects and developers that are now working with the technology. If you have your own framework that works for you, and if it addresses the problems that you face in your design, then you're correct not to use Cairngorm. Many other developers have done the same as you, and their implementations are not the worse for it. However, let's also accept that a great number of developers *have* benefited greatly from frameworks such as Cairngorm or ARP, have felt that these frameworks have introduced simplicity where complexity previously existed. These people do not think Cairngorm (or whatever other framework) is bad. Nor will they assert that the framework you are using instead is bad. Let's not continue this thread on the assertion that there will be one ultimately better than all the rest way of building all RIA upon Flex. Now I have a kind of framework that is much easier than Cairngorm and I'll try to share it with the community when it will pass internal sainity testing in our team (now guys are happy but lets wait more serious testing). I look forward to seeing it, and hope that it can be presented not as better than Cairngorm or simpler than Cairngorm but simply different to Cairngorm. In understanding what you tried to achieve with your approach, rather than what you don't like about other approaches, I think we'll all learn a lot more, no ? - No kickstart examples like Appfuse in Java Hopefully time wil bring them. Flex2 will drive a radically larger community. It is a huge problem cause when you need team development you need unittesting, framework, build strategy etc. And I'm sure that every team create it from scratch now. The idea is to publish some approach and evolve it to support and show best practices on it. Just to be clear, I know of teams of 30+ developers who are developing Flex applications based upon Cairngorm, who are actively embracing unit-testing, continuous integration, refactoring, and all manner of other agile practices. Certainly, the same team that brought you Cairngorm initially, has a great deal of experience in delivering projects using Agile methods, particuarly XP, with both Java, ActionScript 1.0, ActionScript 2.0 and most recently Flex 2 and ActionScript 3.0. The technology, and the choice of architectures upon the technology, have never impinged (any more than AWT, Swing, J2ME, JSP and _javascript_, etc have) upon our ability to deliver using agile methodologies. I guess the challenge here, is that many of
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Mykola, What are your alternatives to flex?? On 11/27/05, Jason Weiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steven, You cited that you know of teams of 30+ developers using Cairngorm on projects today, implying that there are multiple Flex projects with these characteristics. I was curious if those projects have resulted in production (released) software, and if the companies could be publicly cited? My experience in the Java/J2EE world was miserable when teams bloomed beyond 10, 12 people. In fact, I can't think of a single multi-million dollar Java project with over a dozen people that succeeded, as measured strictly by software that was done close to on time, close to on-budget, close to meeting expected business functionality and finally, absolutely meeting the companies expected ROI prior to starting the project looking back. Literally every project that I was on that had under a dozen developers met these metrics. In fact, one project in particular had 8 engineers on it, and it meet managements goals, and then it exceeded them substantially to the tune of 8 figures. Yes, flame bait, my position is that too many developers means too many hands in the cookie jar, if you will, and a project destined to fail regardless of tools or technology or methodology. I'm very conflicted by your positioning in this response, and that's why I'm asking you if you can remove the veil on these clients you reference. The terms agile practices and 30+ developers are paradoxical, wouldn't you agree? Agile, by definition, is about developing software in short iterations of 1 to 4 weeks. 9 women can't have a baby in 1 month, no matter what they try. Likewise, I can't imagine the project management nightmare of having 30 developers crank out iterations in 1 to 4 weeks. Agile development promotes face to face communication over written documents. That must be one helluva meeting room to have 30 developers ~LOL~. Agile development contends that customers and engineers work together in a single workspace, some refer to it as the bullpen though we always preferred the term Bat Cave! 30 engineers plus customers in one space doing 1 to 4 week iterations? Perhaps these folks are doing pair programming (!) so there are really only 15 engineers on the project ~LOL~. I'm not looking to pick a fight with this post, but merely inquiring about the feasibility for you and your team to publish white papers that back these positions up. Until then, I'm afraid I'll have to treat these positions as suspect because they are counter-intuitive and go against every bit of my experience and likely the experiences of other seasoned J2EE developers. On a slightly different topic, the Core J2EE patterns— the book with the Sun logo splashed all over its cover— **mostly** documents patterns (used extremely loosely because I content that the only real patterns were those introduced by the classic GoF book) that were often fixes or work-arounds for missing functionality in the J2EE spec and/or container design flaws. This isn't meant to belittle the engineers that worked on the related J2EE specs, but merely that you have to start somewhere and there were gaps along the way— the core J2EE patterns helped plug the proverbial holes. To recap, I'd be very interested in seeing you and the former iteration::two team deliver white papers that discuss this environment in particular you have repeatedly cited now in a number of posts- large projects with dozens of developers using agile methodologies and J2EE-adapted patterns (with or without Cairngorm- my inquiry isn't about Cairngorm per se) in a Flex environment. In particular, I'd hope that these papers would cite metrics that our community could agree on— metrics like those I cited earlier— so that proper conclusions can be reached based on fact, not supposition or unproven statements. Until papers are published with legitimate metrics that depict success demonstrated by what I view as a counter-intuitive position, I feel compelled to cast doubt upon your claims, to both the FlexCoders community and to my Flex prospects and clients. Best, Jason __ Jason Weiss Cynergy Systems, Inc. Macromedia Flex Alliance Partner http://www.cynergysystems.com Email: jasonDOTweissATcynergysystemsDOTcom__nospam Office: 866-CYNERGY On 11/27/05 4:20 PM, Steven Webster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mykola, Totally agree but EJB was also first technology for enterprise development in Java and it worth us to be blind for a 5 years. EJB was the same overcomplicated that Cairngorm is and as far as I understand Cairngorm uses the same patterns and fully inspired by J2EE. EJB and Cairngorm have nothing in common; both are frameworks, one as you know is a (excuse the simplification) framework for object persistence, the other is a framework microarchitecture for RIA. That the EJB spec is overcomplicated does not mean that
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Aldo, My alternative is one of the good old Java MVC frameworks: Struts, Spring or Webwork. I know that our user experience will sucks in this case but it is better than found that your application is too big in size or too slow or requires some unique plugin or all together :(. Also personally I'm very sceptic when it comes to the non open source technologies, but I must admit that Flex community is very strong. I still believe than Flex has a great future but I have some doubt that the time is come to build something serious on top of Flex. Waiting for Stevent's reply on the previous post to change my mind :) WBR, Mykola Aldo Bucchi wrote: Mykola, What are your alternatives to flex?? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM ~- -- 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 * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Mykola, I've been asking around internally at Macromedia before I knew if I could say this or not... - no i18n support on mxml level I believe Macromedia did not want to risk a strategy upfront, before realizing what the real requirements were... Could someone from macromedia develop on this? What is the state of things now? Will the new Cairngorm support it? will it be integrated into Flex2 later? IDE Support? You know, it is a critical common requirement ( every app nowadays is intlzed ) Again we've added it to our framework. But I see no reason why MM guys haven't done it themselves OK, so Internationalization support using resource bundles is part of the upcoming Flex 2 release. I don't have any other details I can share at present however, but I'm sure more will be revealed during the Flex 2 alpha. I hope you can understand, that with the underlying Flex framework supporting internationalisation, we didn't feel it necessary to hand-bake our own solution for Cairngorm. Cairngorm has always been about guiding architecture, not providing services to the developer as such. Once the spec and implementation for internationalisation is tied down however, I'd suspect that we might put forward ideas as to how the feature can be leveraged within a Cairngorm application, if that is appropriate. My apologies I couldn't share this information sooner ! Best wishes, Steven -- Steven Webster Practice Director (Rich Internet Applications) Macromedia Consulting EMEA Office: + 44 (0) 131 338 6108 Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 428 947 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM ~- -- 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 * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Mykola, Mmh, It's all about taking the better road... Let's start with a premise: Flex 1.5 CAN be used to develop mission critical applications ( evidence suggests this ). As can all of the frameworks you suggested. Second, I would say that Flex has the following differentiating features in favor. See which apply to you: - Development will be faster - Will force you to create a well defined services layer. You can evolve the presentation layer later - You will gain RIA expertise that can be ported to Flex2 later ( or XAML or other eventually ) - The final user will be positively impressed ( assuming you do a good work ) - You will have many new tricks which will eventually give you more choices around use cases - One more tech under your belt Then, write down the flaws ( or negative features ) which you already identified. Repeat the process for every other tech, then match by subject and fill in a comparison matrix. Try to quantify them. I have found that taking a cold minded economist's perspective sometimes comes in handy. Specially when there are feelings involved. Getting someone else in the decision process might help, and keeping track of it is always a good way to CYA. It's all about choices, not perfect solutions, isn't it. Best, Aldo On 11/28/05, Steven Webster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mykola, I've been asking around internally at Macromedia before I knew if I could say this or not... - no i18n support on mxml level I believe Macromedia did not want to risk a strategy upfront, before realizing what the real requirements were... Could someone from macromedia develop on this? What is the state of things now? Will the new Cairngorm support it? will it be integrated into Flex2 later? IDE Support? You know, it is a critical common requirement ( every app nowadays is intlzed ) Again we've added it to our framework. But I see no reason why MM guys haven't done it themselves OK, so Internationalization support using resource bundles is part of the upcoming Flex 2 release. I don't have any other details I can share at present however, but I'm sure more will be revealed during the Flex 2 alpha. I hope you can understand, that with the underlying Flex framework supporting internationalisation, we didn't feel it necessary to hand-bake our own solution for Cairngorm. Cairngorm has always been about guiding architecture, not providing services to the developer as such. Once the spec and implementation for internationalisation is tied down however, I'd suspect that we might put forward ideas as to how the feature can be leveraged within a Cairngorm application, if that is appropriate. My apologies I couldn't share this information sooner ! Best wishes, Steven -- Steven Webster Practice Director (Rich Internet Applications) Macromedia Consulting EMEA Office: + 44 (0) 131 338 6108 Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 428 947 -- 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 -- : Aldo Bucchi : mobile (56) 8 429 8300 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM ~- -- 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 * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Hi Aldo Mmh, It's all about taking the better road...Let's start with a premise: Flex 1.5 CAN be used to develop mission critical applications ( evidence suggests this ). As can all of theframeworks you suggested. Very good news I'd like you to be right. Actually everything is possible the only difference is a price you pay to make things work in a proper way. Second, I would say that Flex has the following differentiatingfeatures in favor. See which apply to you: - Development will be faster I would not say so since it is very easy to find people familiar with Java MVC frameworks and also there are much better books in this area. Also you will 100% need lots of wokrarounds and facilities in Flex such as unittesting, i18n error handling, authentication that are already implemented in Java samples - Will force you to create a well defined services layer. You canevolve the presentation layer later I used to do this way so it is not a pros its just a reasonable thing. - You will gain RIA expertise that can be ported to Flex2 later ( orXAML or other eventually ) Agreed - The final user will be positively impressed ( assuming you do a good work ) Agreed but may have performance bugs :( - You will have many new tricks which will eventually give you morechoices around use cases Agreed again - One more tech under your belt Not a good argument from the point of business but let it be :). Actually technology is only an instrument and any technology can be easyli learned if you know concepts and the problems it solved. For me Flex was very easy since I knew _javascript_ verywelland lots of MVC Web frameworks, I believe the same with Laszlo. Then, write down the flaws ( or negative features ) which you alreadyidentified. Repeat the process for every other tech, then match by subject and fill in a comparison matrix. Try to quantify them.I have found that taking a cold minded economist's perspectivesometimes comes in handy. Specially when there are feelings involved.Getting someone else in the decision process might help, and keeping track of it is always a good way to CYA.It's all about choices, not perfect solutions, isn't it. YeahI alsowant our choice to be motivated from economist's perspective, that is why I've opened this thread. Notto say that RIA sucks, but to ask guys that have much more experience in it about does it economically motivated to build application on top of Flex or it is still academic technology as its examples are. I strongly believe that in some time RIAs will change our vision of internet and it is the future. Cross-browser virtual machine together with good API and enhanced user experience will be that features that will help to do it, just like Java changed our way of programming serverside applications. WBR, Mykola -- 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 Visit your group "flexcoders" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
On a slightly different topic, the Core J2EE patterns— the book with the Sun logo splashed all over its cover— **mostly** documents "patterns" (used extremely loosely because I content that the only real patterns were those introduced by the classic GoF book) that were often fixes or work-arounds for missing functionality in the J2EE spec and/or container design flaws. This isn't meant to belittle the engineers that worked on the related J2EE specs, but merely that you have to start somewhere and there were gaps along the way— the core J2EE patterns helped plug the proverbial holes. Nothing to add. That is exactly what I think based on my experience. Spring, new persistency APIsand MVC frameworks has removed need of the Core J2EE patterns however I know lots of application were build on top of them. Without them EJB would goout of usagemuch earlier. So statement Cairngorm is based on the Core J2EE patterns does not impress me but rather make me think thatthere should exist some more lightweight approach:). However any approach is better than no approach at all. WBR, Mykola -- 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 Visit your group "flexcoders" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
One last reply before I go home for lunch, I am using flex for financial projects within a bank. We have small projects ( 2 people, one month ) in production, and the big ones are coming soon ( this week or next ). It didn't go for the big ones at first because I wanted to train a team and gather some experience managing a flex team. That is already done. We are now getting some video/multimedia requirements. Great to have Flex in the toolkit. Best, Aldo On 11/28/05, Mykola Paliyenko [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a slightly different topic, the Core J2EE patterns— the book with the Sun logo splashed all over its cover— **mostly** documents patterns (used extremely loosely because I content that the only real patterns were those introduced by the classic GoF book) that were often fixes or work-arounds for missing functionality in the J2EE spec and/or container design flaws. This isn't meant to belittle the engineers that worked on the related J2EE specs, but merely that you have to start somewhere and there were gaps along the way— the core J2EE patterns helped plug the proverbial holes. Nothing to add. That is exactly what I think based on my experience. Spring, new persistency APIs and MVC frameworks has removed need of the Core J2EE patterns however I know lots of application were build on top of them. Without them EJB would go out of usage much earlier. So statement Cairngorm is based on the Core J2EE patterns does not impress me but rather make me think that there should exist some more lightweight approach :). However any approach is better than no approach at all. WBR, Mykola -- 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 Visit your group flexcoders on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. -- : Aldo Bucchi : mobile (56) 8 429 8300 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/u8TY5A/tzNLAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM ~- -- 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 * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Hello flexcoders. We are building a huge web application. Our product management want it to be RIA to produce the best user experience. We've choosen Flex as our client technology because it is the best on the market now. But I have a doubt that Flex is a mature technology suitable for enterprise development right now. Does anyone have completed some really big application using Flex, or about to complete? By really big application I mean about 100 of screens in terms of HTML. The problems I see in Flex now are (affects version 1.5) -poor support in IDEs comparing to JSP - poor component library comparing to the desktop and sources ofcomponents are closed to extension. For example to add button in DataGrid I have to use hacks (cell renderers) - poor support of debugging/profiling - Runtime errors are ignored and sometimes its quite hard to determine where is the bug - Poor frameworks. Cairnigorm is overcomplicated anddoes not fit agile development model due to the lack of unit testing approach - no i18n support on mxml level - No kickstart examples like Appfuse in Java - Async call model. Sure it is a great feature but it makes development more complicated Sure it is great to have a really cool alternative to the html and I believe in a year or 2 Flex will be one of the leading technologies in Web development. Macromedia is doing a great job together with Lazslo and sure Ajax. The question is if we have to launch our site in less than a year and site is really bigwhat are ourchances? -- Best Regards,Mykola -- 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 Visit your group "flexcoders" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Hi Mykola, First, most of the problems you mention are solved in Flex 2. - poor support in IDEs comparing to JSP In Flex2 you will have an eclipse plugin ( which is more than enough for any J2EE developer ). Moreover, the SWF format is open, the MXML format is based on XML, and the standalone compiler can be integrated to any other third party IDE. It's just a matter of time till we have 3rd party IDEs showing up. - poor component library comparing to the desktop and sources I agree, but we are still starting. Flex2 is really much more powerful in terms of base components and provides a more robust structure for third party developers to build their own component sets. of components are closed to extension. For example to add button in DataGrid I have to use hacks (cell renderers) Again, I agree, but Flex2 advances quite a lot in this respect. BTW, Cell Renderer is not a hack, in the sense that it was meant to do just that. It is a documented feature. ( OTOH, it is not quite straightforward and suffers of the nuances of Flex 1.5 component development... ) - poor support of debugging/profiling - Runtime errors are ignored and sometimes its quite hard to determine where is the bug Flex2 runs on Flash8.5, which does support Runtime Error detection. I have found it to be amazingly useful and enhances my productivity dramatically. - Poor frameworks. Cairnigorm is overcomplicated and does not fit agile development model due to the lack of unit testing approach. Cairngorm is the FIRST framework donated to the flex opensource community (yes, there is ARP, but it was born for Flash). If you have any contributions to make, I'm sure Steven and everyone else from Macromedia Consulting would be eager to listen and develop a new framework. I believe you can still influence on the new integrated development approach planned for Flex2. Just keep on your discussions on the subject alive. - no i18n support on mxml level I believe Macromedia did not want to risk a strategy upfront, before realizing what the real requirements were... Could someone from macromedia develop on this? What is the state of things now? Will the new Cairngorm support it? will it be integrated into Flex2 later? IDE Support? You know, it is a critical common requirement ( every app nowadays is intlzed ) - No kickstart examples like Appfuse in Java Hopefully time wil bring them. Flex2 will drive a radically larger community. - Async call model. Sure it is a great feature but it makes development more complicated Ok. This is the way things work. It is not that hard to get used to this sort of programming once you gain some practice. Again, I hope new frameworks provide easier/simpler ways of doing this. The question is if we have to launch our site in less than a year and site is really big what are our chances? Tricky question. How about going for Flex2? It is s much better in many many ways that it makes sense to start developing and, when the final release hits the streets, make the appropriate changes ( if any ). OTOH you will be limited to HTTPRequest until the Enterprise services come out... but it should be enough for the presentation layer develpoment. And since you are not using cairngorm, you have the chance to develop a new framework for Flex2 ( the community would gladly help on this ). I presume Steven Webster and the team should be working on the new Cairngorm among other things, you could get in touch with them. Well Mykola, I am also facing a similar situation and I have gone for Flex2. It is an internal project to be released sometime near May next year ( I hope we have the final Flex2 release by then). Being internal, we can quickly update all the players to FP8.5 and skip the delay imposed by the penetration period ( which you are forced to consider if your audience is external ). Flex2 is just such a great improvement over v1.5... I would like to see more people contributing to this thread ;) Best, Aldo On 11/27/05, Mykola Paliyenko [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello flexcoders. We are building a huge web application. Our product management want it to be RIA to produce the best user experience. We've choosen Flex as our client technology because it is the best on the market now. But I have a doubt that Flex is a mature technology suitable for enterprise development right now. Does anyone have completed some really big application using Flex, or about to complete? By really big application I mean about 100 of screens in terms of HTML. The problems I see in Flex now are (affects version 1.5) - poor support in IDEs comparing to JSP - poor component library comparing to the desktop and sources of components are closed to extension. For example to add button in DataGrid I have to use hacks (cell renderers) - poor support of debugging/profiling - Runtime errors are ignored and sometimes its quite hard to determine where is the bug - Poor frameworks. Cairnigorm is overcomplicated and
Re: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Hi Aldo, thanx for a very usefull comments. I'm sorry I have no much experience with Flex 2 since it is alpha now and will require Flash 8.5 plugin, thus will require most of users to download plugin. It is not a problem for a corporate sites but in our case it is a very big problem because we have to buiid site that is oriented on mass user and it will take about a year to get 90% of users use 8.5 player. However now our application is much faster on 8.5 plugin. About your comments: In Flex2 you will have an eclipse plugin ( which is more than enough for any J2EE developer ). Moreover, the SWF format is open, the MXML format is based on XML, and the standalone compiler can be integrated to any other third party IDE. It's just a matter of time till we have 3rd party IDEs showing up. Personaly I use FDT plugin for AS since it is the most mature and Java like (automatic imports, code completion, AS Docs and lots of other features) It does not support Mxml but the idea is to remove scripts from mxml so MXML is very easy in our framework not like the AS code BTW, Cell Renderer is not a hack, in the sense that it was meant to do just that. It is a documented feature. ( OTOH, it is not quite straightforward and suffers of the nuances of Flex 1.5 component development... ) I'd better like mx:Column to support internal tags like it is in Struts displaytag library. Since it is almost impossible to reuse cell renderers. The idea of component is that it is reusable component that can be easily tuned to suuport your requirements. Adding button to the row is a kind of tuning and must not require extra coding. That is my opinion but I guess most of the community will agree with me Flex2 runs on Flash8.5, which does support Runtime Error detection. I have found it to be amazingly useful and enhances my productivity dramatically. Agree 8.5 is much faster Cairngorm is the FIRST framework donated to the flex opensource community (yes, there is ARP, but it was born for Flash). If you have any contributions to make, I'm sure Steven and everyone else from Macromedia Consulting would be eager to listen and develop a new framework. I believe you can still influence on the new integrated development approach planned for Flex2. Just keep on your discussions on the subject alive. Totally agree but EJB was also first technology for enterprise development in Java and it worth us to be blind for a 5 years. EJB was the same overcomplicated that Cairngorm is and as far as I understand Cairngorm uses the same patterns and fully inspired by J2EE. So I just want Flex do not repeat previous mistakes. You do not need to get things that complex like thy are now with Commands FrontControllers and other stuff. Now I have a kind of framework that is much easier than Cairngorm and I'll try to share it with the community when it will pass internal sainity testing in our team (now guys are happy but lets wait more serious testing). - no i18n support on mxml level I believe Macromedia did not want to risk a strategy upfront, before realizing what the real requirements were... Could someone from macromedia develop on this? What is the state of things now? Will the new Cairngorm support it? will it be integrated into Flex2 later? IDE Support? You know, it is a critical common requirement ( every app nowadays is intlzed ) Again we've added it to our framework. But I see no reason why MM guys haven't done it themselves - No kickstart examples like Appfuse in Java Hopefully time wil bring them. Flex2 will drive a radically larger community. It is a huge problem cause when you need team development you need unittesting, framework, build strategy etc. And I'm sure that every team create it from scratch now. The idea is to publish some approach and evolve it to support and show best practices on it. Just like appfuse does in Java community. I guess we have to create our own appfuse Spring + Hibernate + Flex, maybe also Spring + Hibernate + Laszlo to have fully open source alternative. - Async call model. Sure it is a great feature but it makes development more complicated Ok. This is the way things work. It is not that hard to get used to this sort of programming once you gain some practice. Again, I hope new frameworks provide easier/simpler ways of doing this. I'm not saying it is hard to get used to it but some things are almost impossible in such model. For example unittesting. I managed to write unitests for our approach but it was very hard and if your approach evolves test need to be greatly changed not like it is with the sync calls. The question is if we have to launch our site in less than a year and site is really big what are our chances? Tricky question. How about going for Flex2? It is s much better in many many ways that it makes sense to start developing and, when the final release hits the streets, make the appropriate changes ( if any ). It is a very big risk and also we have to consider the plugin problem since most
RE: [flexcoders] Is Flex mature?
Mykola, Totally agree but EJB was also first technology for enterprise development in Java and it worth us to be blind for a 5 years. EJB was the same overcomplicated that Cairngorm is and as far as I understand Cairngorm uses the same patterns and fully inspired by J2EE. EJB and Cairngorm have nothing in common; both are frameworks, one as you know is a (excuse the simplification) framework for object persistence, the other is a framework microarchitecture for RIA. That the EJB spec is overcomplicated does not mean that Cairngorm is, just because both can be called frameworks or both have reference to J2EE. Cairngorm does borrow heavily from the body of work that was performed with Core J2EE Patterns; however, it is not applying J2EE to Flex, it is recognising that many of the patterns that the Core J2EE pattern catalogue included, are patterns that can be applicable to RIA development with Flex (MXML and ActionScript). Note I say *can* be applied to RIA, not *must* be applied to RIA. There are many ways to skin a cat. Apologies to cat lovers. Insert annoying animal of your choice. do not repeat previous mistakes. You do not need to get things that complex like thy are now with Commands FrontControllers and other stuff. I think that's quite a bold statement. Perhaps you do not need them, and I absolutely agree that many many projects do not need Commands, Front Controllers or other stuff. However, I have worked on and with several projects that *have* benefited from these patterns and the architecture that the collaboration of these patterns introduced. Was this solution the *only* way we could have addressed the problems we faced ? Of course not ... There are as many different ways of doing these things as there are talented architects and developers that are now working with the technology. If you have your own framework that works for you, and if it addresses the problems that you face in your design, then you're correct not to use Cairngorm. Many other developers have done the same as you, and their implementations are not the worse for it. However, let's also accept that a great number of developers *have* benefited greatly from frameworks such as Cairngorm or ARP, have felt that these frameworks have introduced simplicity where complexity previously existed. These people do not think Cairngorm (or whatever other framework) is bad. Nor will they assert that the framework you are using instead is bad. Let's not continue this thread on the assertion that there will be one ultimately better than all the rest way of building all RIA upon Flex. Now I have a kind of framework that is much easier than Cairngorm and I'll try to share it with the community when it will pass internal sainity testing in our team (now guys are happy but lets wait more serious testing). I look forward to seeing it, and hope that it can be presented not as better than Cairngorm or simpler than Cairngorm but simply different to Cairngorm. In understanding what you tried to achieve with your approach, rather than what you don't like about other approaches, I think we'll all learn a lot more, no ? - No kickstart examples like Appfuse in Java Hopefully time wil bring them. Flex2 will drive a radically larger community. It is a huge problem cause when you need team development you need unittesting, framework, build strategy etc. And I'm sure that every team create it from scratch now. The idea is to publish some approach and evolve it to support and show best practices on it. Just to be clear, I know of teams of 30+ developers who are developing Flex applications based upon Cairngorm, who are actively embracing unit-testing, continuous integration, refactoring, and all manner of other agile practices. Certainly, the same team that brought you Cairngorm initially, has a great deal of experience in delivering projects using Agile methods, particuarly XP, with both Java, ActionScript 1.0, ActionScript 2.0 and most recently Flex 2 and ActionScript 3.0. The technology, and the choice of architectures upon the technology, have never impinged (any more than AWT, Swing, J2ME, JSP and JavaScript, etc have) upon our ability to deliver using agile methodologies. I guess the challenge here, is that many of these teams are immersed in product development, and can't always invest the time necessary to put these best-practices such as how to do asynchronous testing, out to the community as whitepapers/blog entries, etc, quickly as people would like. However; I'd challenge the *need* to do asynchronous testing, if you're refactoring correctly. You can design for test, and think carefully in Cairngorm about how you implement your Command classes, to make them more testable. I know of teams who do asynchronous testing with mock object strategies, however I have never found the overhead of those approaches to justify the test-complexity. I don't believe in testing remote object
