Re: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about changing the language?

2007-12-02 Thread Robert Thompson 
My point was only to refer to the inherent exclusive danger of open source 
tools that Microsoft has had occasion to exploit, and that is the reliability 
of a construct if derivatives aren't controlled as there root. And I'm 
referring to the language not the classes.  Requesting a feature change or 
improvement is far different from requesting open source of the Flex As3 
language definition.

What I mean by this is that Open Source code in the form of AS3 classes is a 
good thing.  Any notion, however, that the community of Flex Developers would 
be able to distribute a different base interpreter is a dangerous one and 
competitors like Microsoft know it (this doesn't include a custom lex and 
interpreter for a 3rd party but the idea of a new version of a Flex 
interpreter).

My only point was to keep Adobe informed of some of Microsoft's strategies they 
have exhibited in the past.  I'm sure some at Adobe already know it, but I 
believe in the lessons of history and the need to repeat them when the 
possibility of danger is still there, especially as a friendly reminder to the 
Flex community at large.

There is no whining going on here by anybody as far as I can tell; only, if 
anything, casting the stone from a possible whiny arm.  The fact is that the 
community of development on the whole in the world is becoming a lot better, 
but there are still people out there with a never ending thirst for control, 
and to keep their behemoths alive. 

-r


aceoohay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   Robert:
 
 Yes this is an earnest request. 
 
 While I do not shrink from controversy if I believe it will get 
 things done, I don't needlessly whine either. I believe that it is 
 important to make sure that we help the developers of our tools 
 understand what is important to us consumers of the tools. Otherwise 
 their direction/vision may preclude them from doing the little things 
 that make the difference between a easy to use tool and one that 
 ain't.
 
 But really folks, this isn't rocket science, the sort routines are 
 broken.
 
 Paul
 
 --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Robert Thompson 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  I don't believe the Flex language itself is open source, only 
 the .swf format.
  
  Someone at adobe may want to clear that up.
  
  Although I'm sure this is an earnest request, whenever open source 
 is discussed one thing everyone on this list has to be careful of is 
 that MICROSOFT will not go well into that good night of the loser 
 status that are suffering at the hands of Apple and Linux after the 
 desperate attempts by SCO.
  
  I've learned enough about them to know that.  They will keep people 
 out on the edge of happenings to attempt to stir trouble, so any 
 discussion of Open Source (microsoft's thorn) in a way that would 
 disturb the good foundation of Flash end-users should looked at 
 closely.
  
  One thing I've learned about enemies is that once you begin to feel 
 sorry for their sad state, they usually have such little class as to 
 reach out in desperation to draw their gun from their black holster 
 and beady blue eyes to shoot at innocence.
  
  Mercy is good, but not with Microsoft (never).
  
  -r
  
  Ralf Bokelberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 wrote:   Why has you data null values in 
 the first place?
   Maybe you can put in some dummy data?
   Cheers
   Ralf.
   
   
 
  
 
  -
  Get easy, one-click access to your favorites.  Make Yahoo! your 
 homepage.
 
 
 
 
   

   
-
Get easy, one-click access to your favorites.  Make Yahoo! your homepage.

RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about changing the language?

2007-12-02 Thread Matt Chotin 
I've moved this bug to https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-13808
since it is not related to the ActionScript compiler, it's only in the
Flex classes.

 

Matt

 

From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of aceoohay
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 9:14 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?

 

Gordon:

Per your request I have filed a bug report. It can be found here;

https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/ASC-3042

Paul
--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
, aceoohay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Gordon, et al:
 
 Here is a simple test that will show the problem;
 
 ?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8?
 mx:Application xmlns:mx=http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml; 
 layout=absolute
 creationComplete=initApp()
 mx:Script
 ![CDATA[
 import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
 import mx.controls.Alert;
 [Bindable] public var acData:ArrayCollection = new 
 ArrayCollection;
 private function initApp():void
 {
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:1,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:A});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:2,col2:new Date
 (),col3:null,col4:B});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:3,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:C});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:4,col2:new Date
 (),col3:null,col4:D});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:5,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:E});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:6,col2:new Date
 (),col3:false,col4:F});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 dgSortTest.dataProvider = acData;
 }
 ]]
 /mx:Script
 
 mx:DataGrid id=dgSortTest x=26 y=10
 mx:columns
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 1 
 dataField=col1/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 2 
 dataField=col2/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 3 
 dataField=col3/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 4 
 dataField=col4/
 /mx:columns
 /mx:DataGrid
 
 /mx:Application
 
 --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com , Gordon Smith gosmith@ wrote:
 
  Your use case seem very reasonable to me. In this particular case 
I
  disagree with my esteemed colleague Alex (who sits across from 
 me)... I
  think our default sorting routines should handle null values. So 
 please
  file this as a bug at http://bugs.adobe.com/flex and feel free to
  mention that I consider it a bug.
  
  However, I agree with Alex that it probably will not get fixed in 
 time
  for the Flex 3 release, as the bar is currently extremely high for
  making changes at this point. We've got to stabilize the release 
 and get
  it out! So you'll need to use a workaround for now.
  
  Gordon Smith
  Adobe Flex SDK Team
  
  
  
  From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com  
 [mailto:flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com ] On
  Behalf Of aceoohay
  Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:38 PM
  To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com

  Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go 
about
  changing the language?
  
  
  
  Gordon:
  
  This thread was not intended as a technical thread, which is why 
I 
  didn't include the details about the problem. I documented the 
  problem in the following post;
  
  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131
  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131 
  
  The only responses I got seemed to indicate that the behavior was 
 by 
  design, as opposed to a bug.
  
  Yes, it does throw a runtime error.
  
  I just signed up over at the Adobe bugs site.
  
  Paul
  
  --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com  mailto:flexcoders%
 40yahoogroups.com
  , Gordon Smith gosmith@ wrote:
  
it gets confused when there are nulls in date, numeric, or 
 boolean
   fields
   
this is by design
   
   I doubt that we designed this code to intentionally get 
  confused. : ) It
   sounds like we're simply not properly handling null field 
values 
  when
   sorting.
   
   What do you mean by get confused? Does it throw an RTE? Do 
the 
  nulls
   cause incorrect sorting of the non-null values? Do the nulls 
not 
  sort
   together? How kind of sorting behavior do you think should 
occur 
  when
   there are null values? Should they sort before or after other 
  values?
   Please file the bug at htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex.
  htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex. 
   
   BTW, the Flex SDK is not yet open-source, but it will be soon.
   
   Gordon Smith
   Adobe Flex SDK Team
   
   
   
   From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com

RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about changing the language?

2007-12-02 Thread Matt Chotin 
And I guess let me add a few other things.

 

1)  With regard to the bug itself, I'm guessing that the issue is
that first item in the collection to be sorted has the null value.  This
is causing an error because we can't determine what kind of comparator
to use by default.  If your first item hadn't been null you wouldn't see
the issue. This means that you should specify the comparator you want to
use, but one could argue that perhaps more information could be added to
the DataGridColumn to provide an option for some of the provided
comparators.  

2)  I can't remember in our code which way null compares to an
actual value, but they will group together.

3)  There will of course be a process for code to get contributed to
the SDK.  We'll have more info on this as we get closer to release, but
in general it will involve having a bug filed in the bugbase, votes
indicating the community's interest in having it fixed along with SDK
management agreeing that the contribution is useful, and then the
committers (SDK engineering) approval of the fix.

 

Matt

 

From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Matt Chotin
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 3:57 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?

 

I've moved this bug to https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-13808
since it is not related to the ActionScript compiler, it's only in the
Flex classes.

 

Matt

 

From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of aceoohay
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 9:14 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?

 

Gordon:

Per your request I have filed a bug report. It can be found here;

https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/ASC-3042

Paul
--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
, aceoohay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Gordon, et al:
 
 Here is a simple test that will show the problem;
 
 ?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8?
 mx:Application xmlns:mx=http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml; 
 layout=absolute
 creationComplete=initApp()
 mx:Script
 ![CDATA[
 import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
 import mx.controls.Alert;
 [Bindable] public var acData:ArrayCollection = new 
 ArrayCollection;
 private function initApp():void
 {
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:1,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:A});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:2,col2:new Date
 (),col3:null,col4:B});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:3,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:C});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:4,col2:new Date
 (),col3:null,col4:D});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:5,col2:new Date
 (),col3:true,col4:E});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 acData.addItem({col1:6,col2:new Date
 (),col3:false,col4:F});
 acData.addItem
 ({col1:null,col2:null,col3:null,col4:null});
 dgSortTest.dataProvider = acData;
 }
 ]]
 /mx:Script
 
 mx:DataGrid id=dgSortTest x=26 y=10
 mx:columns
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 1 
 dataField=col1/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 2 
 dataField=col2/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 3 
 dataField=col3/
 mx:DataGridColumn headerText=Column 4 
 dataField=col4/
 /mx:columns
 /mx:DataGrid
 
 /mx:Application
 
 --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com , Gordon Smith gosmith@ wrote:
 
  Your use case seem very reasonable to me. In this particular case 
I
  disagree with my esteemed colleague Alex (who sits across from 
 me)... I
  think our default sorting routines should handle null values. So 
 please
  file this as a bug at http://bugs.adobe.com/flex and feel free to
  mention that I consider it a bug.
  
  However, I agree with Alex that it probably will not get fixed in 
 time
  for the Flex 3 release, as the bar is currently extremely high for
  making changes at this point. We've got to stabilize the release 
 and get
  it out! So you'll need to use a workaround for now.
  
  Gordon Smith
  Adobe Flex SDK Team
  
  
  
  From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com  
 [mailto:flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com ] On
  Behalf Of aceoohay
  Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:38 PM
  To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com

  Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go 
about
  changing the language?
  
  
  
  Gordon:
  
  This thread was not intended as a technical thread, which is why 
I 
  didn't include the details about the problem. I documented the 
  problem in the following post;
  
  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders

RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about changing the language?

2007-12-01 Thread Gordon Smith 
Your use case seem very reasonable to me. In this particular case I
disagree with my esteemed colleague Alex (who sits across from me)... I
think our default sorting routines should handle null values. So please
file this as a bug at http://bugs.adobe.com/flex and feel free to
mention that I consider it a bug.
 
However, I agree with Alex that it probably will not get fixed in time
for the Flex 3 release, as the bar is currently extremely high for
making changes at this point. We've got to stabilize the release and get
it out! So you'll need to use a workaround for now.
 
Gordon Smith
Adobe Flex SDK Team



From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of aceoohay
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:38 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?



Gordon:

This thread was not intended as a technical thread, which is why I 
didn't include the details about the problem. I documented the 
problem in the following post;

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131 

The only responses I got seemed to indicate that the behavior was by 
design, as opposed to a bug.

Yes, it does throw a runtime error.

I just signed up over at the Adobe bugs site.

Paul

--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
, Gordon Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  it gets confused when there are nulls in date, numeric, or boolean
 fields
 
  this is by design
 
 I doubt that we designed this code to intentionally get 
confused. : ) It
 sounds like we're simply not properly handling null field values 
when
 sorting.
 
 What do you mean by get confused? Does it throw an RTE? Do the 
nulls
 cause incorrect sorting of the non-null values? Do the nulls not 
sort
 together? How kind of sorting behavior do you think should occur 
when
 there are null values? Should they sort before or after other 
values?
 Please file the bug at htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex.
htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex. 
 
 BTW, the Flex SDK is not yet open-source, but it will be soon.
 
 Gordon Smith
 Adobe Flex SDK Team
 
 
 
 From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com

[mailto:flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
] On
 Behalf Of aceoohay
 Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 9:33 PM
 To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com 
 Subject: [flexcoders] If Flex is open source, how do we go about
 changing the language?
 
 
 
 I just ran across what I consider a significant deficiency in Flex. 
 To correct this problem would require an addition of two attributes 
 to the mx:DataGridColumn class.
 
 I could make a change to my version of the language, or perhaps I 
 could create an inherited class. However, I feel strongly that the 
 problem is so fundamental that it should be changed in the 
language. 
 How do I go about making this happen?
 
 The problem is this;
 
 It appears that when sorting a DataGrid by clicking a column that 
 Flex currently does its best to determine the data type and sorts 
 based on that data type. The problem is that it gets confused when 
 there are nulls in date, numeric, or boolean fields. When it gets 
 confused it ralph's on its shoes (blows up). Based on my research, 
 including reading a bit of the file sortField.as, this is by design.
 
 There is a way around it but it requires instantiating a compare 
 function for each column that might get a null, and might be one of 
 non string data types. The workaround is to create a function, and 
 use the sortCompareFunction attribute to call a that function. 
 There is even a kludgier workaround to make the function generic by 
 using the headerRelease attribute of the DataGrid to update a 
 public variable with the column number.
 
 Since it seems as though this is an ubiquitous problem, it should 
be 
 solved in the language itself. The best approach that I came up 
with 
 is to have two new attributes for the mx:DataGridColumn;
 
 sortDataType - Basically specify the type of data contained in the 
 column that would be honored by the sort routine irrespective of 
the 
 values contained in the column. Values would be any valid data type.
 
 sortNullCollatingSequence - This would define whether nulls get 
 sorted to the top or bottom of the list. Values would be low - 
which 
 would indicate that nulls would sort lower than the lowest normal 
 value, and high - which would indicate that nulls would sort higher 
 than the highest normal value.
 
 This is one possible solution, there may be better ones but in my 
 opinion the current method should be improved. I would like to see 
it 
 implemented quickly as I believe it is a serious problem.
 
 How do I go about getting this taken seriously, and not assigned 
 an enhancement request number and never looked at again

RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about changing the language?

2007-12-01 Thread Alex Harui 
So when we do go open-source next year, you will be able to offer
changes to the source code like the Sort code (but not the language
itself).  Then Gordon and I and the rest of the team will duke it out
over whether your submission is reasonable, and if so, it  or something
like it will be changed in the source code for future versions.

 



From: Gordon Smith 
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 3:00 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Alex Harui; Lauren Park
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?

 

Your use case seem very reasonable to me. In this particular case I
disagree with my esteemed colleague Alex (who sits across from me)... I
think our default sorting routines should handle null values. So please
file this as a bug at http://bugs.adobe.com/flex and feel free to
mention that I consider it a bug.

 

However, I agree with Alex that it probably will not get fixed in time
for the Flex 3 release, as the bar is currently extremely high for
making changes at this point. We've got to stabilize the release and get
it out! So you'll need to use a workaround for now.

 

Gordon Smith

Adobe Flex SDK Team

 



From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of aceoohay
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:38 PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: If Flex is open source, how do we go about
changing the language?

Gordon:

This thread was not intended as a technical thread, which is why I 
didn't include the details about the problem. I documented the 
problem in the following post;

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/95131 

The only responses I got seemed to indicate that the behavior was by 
design, as opposed to a bug.

Yes, it does throw a runtime error.

I just signed up over at the Adobe bugs site.

Paul

--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
, Gordon Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  it gets confused when there are nulls in date, numeric, or boolean
 fields
 
  this is by design
 
 I doubt that we designed this code to intentionally get 
confused. : ) It
 sounds like we're simply not properly handling null field values 
when
 sorting.
 
 What do you mean by get confused? Does it throw an RTE? Do the 
nulls
 cause incorrect sorting of the non-null values? Do the nulls not 
sort
 together? How kind of sorting behavior do you think should occur 
when
 there are null values? Should they sort before or after other 
values?
 Please file the bug at htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex.
htp://bugs.adobe.com/flex. 
 
 BTW, the Flex SDK is not yet open-source, but it will be soon.
 
 Gordon Smith
 Adobe Flex SDK Team
 
 
 
 From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com

[mailto:flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com
] On
 Behalf Of aceoohay
 Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 9:33 PM
 To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com 
 Subject: [flexcoders] If Flex is open source, how do we go about
 changing the language?
 
 
 
 I just ran across what I consider a significant deficiency in Flex. 
 To correct this problem would require an addition of two attributes 
 to the mx:DataGridColumn class.
 
 I could make a change to my version of the language, or perhaps I 
 could create an inherited class. However, I feel strongly that the 
 problem is so fundamental that it should be changed in the 
language. 
 How do I go about making this happen?
 
 The problem is this;
 
 It appears that when sorting a DataGrid by clicking a column that 
 Flex currently does its best to determine the data type and sorts 
 based on that data type. The problem is that it gets confused when 
 there are nulls in date, numeric, or boolean fields. When it gets 
 confused it ralph's on its shoes (blows up). Based on my research, 
 including reading a bit of the file sortField.as, this is by design.
 
 There is a way around it but it requires instantiating a compare 
 function for each column that might get a null, and might be one of 
 non string data types. The workaround is to create a function, and 
 use the sortCompareFunction attribute to call a that function. 
 There is even a kludgier workaround to make the function generic by 
 using the headerRelease attribute of the DataGrid to update a 
 public variable with the column number.
 
 Since it seems as though this is an ubiquitous problem, it should 
be 
 solved in the language itself. The best approach that I came up 
with 
 is to have two new attributes for the mx:DataGridColumn;
 
 sortDataType - Basically specify the type of data contained in the 
 column that would be honored by the sort routine irrespective of 
the 
 values contained in the column. Values would be any valid data type.
 
 sortNullCollatingSequence