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121 Comments
- SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -8/+71Avoiding a proprietary system like Flex by utilizing a proprietary system like ASP.NET is an oxymoron.
- stupidStan, on 10/12/2007, -8/+59that does not make any sense. ASP.net is rendered on the SERVER side, it produces html for the browser to read, so the browser doesn't know whether or not it is reading a php, asp, cf, or simply an html page. You are saying this without understanding your facts. You are correct about javascript, but as for the server side languages you are completely wrong.
- rudy23, on 10/12/2007, -2/+231. Looks great because you get a flash interface
2. Most browsers support flash
3. Easy to use and Fast
Comes in real handy for small widgets such as a stock ticker etc. Not a good idea to build your entire site using flex. - ucg1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14@emehrkay
OpenLaszlo is an open source alternative to Flex. I believe they are even working on having the option of having the output format be standard HTML/CSS/Javascript, though its main use is for Flash interfaces (if I understand correctly). Haven't used it myself, but it sounds pretty cool from what I've read (for reasons other than just being a Flex alternative). - Screwy1138, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20I develop in .Net all the time. My two browsers I use are IE7 and Firefox. I've run into no issues.
Even WPF/E which lets you do some really fun stuff works cross browser. - webcomsystems, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I worked on a J2EE project using FLEX as the front end.
With FLEX you can develop an application that has "state". No need for Cookies or sessions.
It's basically a "semi-thick" client but delivered through the browser, and since more than 90% of uses have the flash plugin, compatibility is no problem.
I'd go as far as to say that FLEX is the spearhead of the new brand of Rich Internet Applications along side technologies like AJAX. - timsco, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Try doing this with ASP.NET:
http://actionscriptarchitect.com/pv3d/Video3D.html
The guy has some good points. Flash content is often over-used, but there are things that html/js/css just can't do yet. - larryrobinson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Wrong.
We deliver software used by 1000's of municipal governments. Front end written in Flex backend in Ruby and Rails. (Our old version was written in .NET.)
No comparison for the ease of development using Flex and Ruby.
As for deployment all the sysadmins throughout the country love it. Install Flashplayer 9 and you're off and running. We have yet to run across and odd browser incompatabilities or other odd behavior, something we spent a fair amount of resources on before. Can't tell you what a bitch it is to track down all those types of problems. (Those who know are nodding in agreement.)
Nowaday I develop on a macbook pro and fire up parallels to check windows and linux flash players to confirm that flex is behaving as expected. It's at the point where I hardly even bother with that more than once a week.
I don't want to inject myself into this debate as I view most of these arguments as childish and stupid but I felt it was necessary to refute your blanket proclamation. - jarofclay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11These two are apples and oranges really:
Flex:
1. Designed for creating interfaces (use whatever language on backend, webservices, XML, etc)
2. Runs on all OSes (requires Flash plugin in browser - 99% saturation)
3. Will soon run on all OSes desktop (See Apollo project).
4. IDE runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows
ASP.net
1. Designed for entire applications.
2. Server only runs on Windows
3. IDE only runs on Windows - emehrkay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10yes flex sounds like a great idea (from what i've heard so far), i am just wondering if there were ever be an open source equivalent
- weprin, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17ASP.NET is much more mature, with tons of developer resources already available, a huge support community, and is absolutely beautiful to work with (since the .NET 2.0 release). I don't want to hear any derogatory comments from the people who've either never actually developed a full cycle web application in .NET, or those who've only spent 5 minutes with it and can't possibly understand the depth of its power and efficiency in development. I am in my 4th year working with .NET technology and I'm *still* learning new things every single day.
- kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Yea, WPF can do that too. But his point is about using Flash over HTML/Javascript/CSS.
Since he's giving out about Flash being proprietory, WPF doens't solve that problem. - bradleycomer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12@Screwy
I develop in .NET quite a bit myself, but I have noticed some weird rendering that appears fine in MS browsers but has funky effects in FF and Opera. For example, the standard calendar control has an extremely thick border around the Month portion in FF and Opera when using the "Professional" template look, but appears fine in IE6/7.
While this is obviously very minor, there are some quirks that exist. - helmsb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9.NET is server side, yes as a previous comment mentioned there are some minor quirks but all of them can be fixed very easily. The only time I have problems with crossbrowser compatibility is when I am doing CSS. I have nothing against FLEX. I have never used it, but .NET is tried and true and is here to stay. Don't bash a product you know nothing about.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@ emehrkay
Openlaszlo would be an open-source equivalent. It uses XML and JavaScript as opposed to MXML and ActionScript 3, and compiles to Flash.
http://www.openlaszlo.org/
The Flex SDK is free, it's just Flex Builder (Eclipse based IDE) which costs money.
(Edit - Elfredo got there before me) - jharlequin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Do you know how old Flash MX is? That's like saying you don't use the internet because dial-up is too slow...
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7No one is saying you can't do that with WPF/E, but if you're going to go that route than how can you crticize Flex for using .swf? It's like criticizing the use of quicktime because it's a proprietary format, then offering .wmv as an alternative.
- cakestick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Flash MX made it awfully clear that you do *not* design the entire site with it.
- CrumbleBeeHaHa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@Sniper:
Flex is proprietary on the client and server side. ASP.NET is only propietary to the server, and outputs standard HTML/javascript with is non-proprietary for all clients.
Flex is like a weak version of WPF/E when it comes down to it. Good luck Adobe... - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+5@ahsteele
@locoHost
I think you both seem to be missing that HTML/DOM/CSS/etc. support across different browsers and even different versions of the SAME browser is and has always been the major headache of web designers. So anything that generates those things on the server side is going to have the exact same issues.
So while ahsteele points out that Flex is dependant on having a Flash plugin (worse, specifically Flash 9 plugin or later), the same is true for ANY fancy AJAXish solution. It doesn't matter how "strong" your "knowledge" is. So yes, when you write your AJAX (or whatever you want to call it) version, you very much have locked yourself into something specific on the client. Worse, now you have to worry about if they change version of Safari, Firefox, IE, or Opera. OTOH, the Flash plugin is one single piece of code for an entire operating system. So what you really have to test once on the OS, rather than once on each browser on each OS. - Screwy1138, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Same here. I don't have a problem making ASP.Net work cross platform. It has so much already done for you, you spend more time working on the important parts of the app.
- mahavishnu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Web applications have traditionally been developed in one, two or three tiers - (i.e web, application and database servers). We all know what the web server does - serves up static or generated html and the app server is where you will find ASP, ColdFusion, PHP, etc. And of course, the database server is where the database of choice lives.
FLEX is yet another layer - very different from the traditional approach of embedding both presentation and logic in the same layer - FLEX 2 is used exclusively for the presentation layer which can utilize encapsulated functionality from app server technologies. This is a huge advantage because by separating the presentation from the logic and database access functionality, we have gained far more FLEXibility in how we can build our web based applications. This may not sound like much now but with the advent of browserless web connected technologies like Adobe's Apollo project, the true power of developing MVC style partitioned applications will be much more apparent. - geoken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Still, I don't get it. Why would an architect choose to rely on a proprietary runtime, available only from a single vendor to do stuff that can be done just as easily with standard XHTML, CSS and JavaScript?"
Because with a proprietary runtime you don't get a bunch of different companies offering their own personal take on how they think content should be rendered.
Also, why do people always overlook the fact that swf's are vector based. - cesig, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@stupidstan
Not that I'm trying to argue (as I've never used .NET), but a server-side language can output HTML and CSS that renders correctly in one browser, but not in another. In fact, just about any HTML code written for IE6 will probably need some tweaking to get other browsers to render it correctly as well. This has to do with browser quirks and not the server-side language, but it is still very possible to have this issue.
With Flex (and the Flash plugin), it's pretty much moot. - douggmc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Stupid premise for a question. Dugg down as lame.
Why don't I get Ford vs. Chevy, Chevy cars can be driven too.
Why don't I get Coke vs. Pepsi, Pepsi tastes sweet and bubbly too.
Why don't I get VB vs. Delphi, Delphi can make Windows programs easy and fast too.
It's called alternatives. - lepew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4flex / apollo will be very important going forward. Adobe is the only company providing an efficient, reliable cross-platform and standards-based development and deployment solution.
and it's free (AS IN BEER) - whisperedlie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5admittedly, creating cross-browser compatible web applications in .NET was severely lacking in *1.1*. While not at all impossible (extending your browsercaps, creating DOM-compatible custom validators, and using derivative server controls to round out any finicky rendering problems not addressed by browsercaps), it was certainly not painless. Fortunately, Microsoft payed a lot of attention to this in 2.0 and have yielded a much, much better product.
- jharlequin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The reason to use Flex is to gain all of the advantages of the flash player and to make that all accessible to developers who are used to building applications in visual studio etc. Flash itself can do all the pretty code things that Flex can do but Flex takes away the timeline which is often very hard for non-flash developers to get a hold on. The other benefit is that people that have used flash before (designers, etc) are going to be of more use as they will understand and be able to work with certain aspects of Flex. A lot of assets for a Flex project can be made in Flash. So though I am not amazingly familiar with Windows Presentation Format I am guessing that it will be a much bigger pain in the ass to do a project utilizing it.
- aparsons, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5So, not only is he advocating ASP.NET, but he's essentially advocating IIS and Windows, since you need both of those platforms to serve ASP.NET. At least Adobe will run in any J2EE regardless of OS. Plus, most companies use proprietary vendors because of support. When you have a PHP problem or Javascript program at 2am, who are you going to call to figure it out? Financially, who is on the line - not PHP.NET! What a jackass.
- david76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There's a very simple explanation of what Flex is.
Flash for developers.
You CAN do a lot of things in Flash's ActionScript and tie into XML and all, but Flex is intended for development of applications within Flash. - gr00vy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Flex is to a hand rolled site, as a printer driver is to hand rolled postscript.
You can do more with a hand rolled site. You can be clever, be more precise, and even do stuff no-one has even seen before. You can create reuse methodologies, have your code be as elegant or obscure as you like.
But, it will be easier to create a site using flex as the output. I won't have to *know* the underlying technology and be able to focus on one thing and let Flex do the "tech" stuff.
Some write thier own, some use LaTex, some use inDesign, some use Elements, some use the Gimp. Same kind of thing. - Braxo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ emerkay,
Flex is free to use. Its just the graphical builder stuff that you need to pay for. I've built flex applications just using the free KDE and xCode on my mac. - magic6435, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@geoken
Why didn't ya know thats what all the designers and developers say who took a look at flash 7 years ago said they didn't like it and moved on. they have no idea of everything that can be done in flash now but still talk about it as if they have been developing it for years..... same thing with coldFusion. - vineetb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ask that to the fortune 500 companies investing into Flex and the Flex developers who charge as high as $300/hour. Flex has its niche and its solving problems which other technologies have not been able to solve.
- ChumpChief, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I don't think "oxymoron" means what you think it means...
"Avoiding a proprietary system like Flex by utilizing a proprietary system like ASP.NET is moronic." would make more sense. - ahsteele, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@pkulak
When you understand how ASP works come back to the big kids table. - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+3@stelt
The browser is an inherently flawed tool for running applications (understandably). Flash is a horrible way to do applications in a browser. Flash+Flex2, however, is an excellent one. - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+3@ahsteele
Oh, I can agree with you on that. Unfortunately, I think the opposite side of the argument is stronger. The fact that the Flash Player is closed and controlled by Adobe means that I don't have to worry about *which* Flash Player a user is running. If FP was open source, supposedly the "good thing" would be that people could make their own FP. So there might be a Mozilla FP and a Logitech FP and the Adobe FP, all for Windows (as well as other platforms). We KNOW what happens when multiple people implement the same spec, right? If this situation came about, the entire benefit of using Flash/Flex would evaporate in a quagmire of incompatibilities and player-specific quirks. - jharlequin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Your post is very funny. You speak with such strong words for .net and then dismiss anyone who has not done a full application with it... Have you ever done a full project with Flex? If anything Flex and ASP.net should be used in conjunction. They both have strengths that will benefit different projects. No one tool is perfect. Oh and I have developed with ASP.net it's super.
- MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What about apache and modmono?
- whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+2@bendavies
While I agree with you on some parts, I think you have to keep this in the context of what kind of applications are being built. Flex is being positioned as a competitor to Java Applets and AJAX web pages. None of those other two are going to work very well with a braille reader or on different formats like a PDA unless the designer has put thought into that up front. It's really no different with Flex. Though I will say with some of the automatic tiling and resizing in Flex, it's a lot easier to build a web app that works on a skinny screen than it is with AJAX. Hell, even most non-AJAX websites look like crap on PDA/mobile phone screens without the site developer keeping it in mind.
Also, the reality of a business or even and individual is that they want to make their content available for the largest number of PEOPLE, not the largest number of USER-AGENTS. That may not be fair, but it is reality. In my opinion, you're better off making the whizbang app in Flex or AJAX, and then making a separate plain-HTML app for people with disabilities. Otherwise, you'll wind up with a giant hairball of code. - nwoolls, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Um, I could definately be wrong, but it looks to me like what you linked is a clone of one of the more recognized Microsoft demos for WPF:
http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=116327
Either way, yes, you most definately can do that with ASP.NET (and XAML). - webcomsystems, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2icexe,
It's not just about getting the biggest audience, with RIA's we're talking about Mission Critical corporate applications written in FLEX.
As for Flash/FLEX not allowing search engine spiders into it, a website is a website, a FLEX application is something different and doesnt neccessarily need the Google spider running through it. Does Google index your install of Outlook?
We're talking here about Client-style, client-functionality software being available over the internet. - CaptShmo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been a flash developer for many years, and although I haven't played around with Flex too much, the demos i've watched and read through have made me feel that it's good for getting certain types of apps off the ground very quickly, but if your clients want anything more than out of the box type functionality, you'd probably be better off doing the thing yourself in flash from scratch. With flex I feel you are limited to (or at least heavily guided towards) using the transitions, animations and types of user interactivity which are predefined by the built-in classes, the end result of which are applications that have the same general feel as a lot of other flex apps. and which lack the rich user experience you can accomplish with a flash app. tailored specifically for your needs.
play around with some of the samples here and see how they all sorta share the same basic types of content:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/?tab:samples=1 - RevGenetics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From Article:
"And what about search engines and other content-aware tools, which cannot easily access the content delivered by Flex applications? And permalinks, which do not work as naturally with Flex as they do with HTML? How do you bookmark a piece of content in a Flex application on Delicious? And - which surprises will you run into when you hit the browser's Back button?"
You can keep history and use the back button, and save links, but it is different as you need to program in this ability. My programmer is a pretty good kid, and I admit he is a novice... but he could do it at our small website:
try these links and they will send you to different parts of the website, even though it is a single flash app:
http://www.revgenetics.com/index.html?myPage=news
http://www.revgenetics.com/index.html?myPage=faq
http://www.revgenetics.com/index.html?myPage=prodInfo
you can also use the back button, and it looks the same if it is in practically any webbrowser. If a mobile device access it, we simply send them to a pure html site.
Our problem? Search Engines... we need to do extra HTML for them.
Thanks
Anthony - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+2@ahsteele
Actually, I read pkulak's statement as one that was SUPPORTING your argument. But maybe that's just me...
@emehrkay
"...but if adobe is anyting like apple, we'll see flex/apollo built into our next flash upgrades"
Flex support was already built into the Flash player for quite some time. Flex2 support was added last August in Flash Player 9. That's the one thing that's made it a lot easier to sell where I work. Flash Player is already a necessity for web browsing, since some totally legit sites things its a good idea to build a simple website in Flash (blech). So the companies already have a plan to keep updated on the latest version of Flash Player. They keep it more current than the browser, that's for sure. If they don't, I just have to point out some security flaw in an older version and they have to cover their ass by updating to the new one.
Having personally used this in a corporate setting, I can tell you my boss was blown away. With Flex, you get the level of UI design you used to only get with native apps or Java applets. However, it runs fast and works great on differing browser versions.
The biggest problem I have with Flex is that, even in version 2, the widget library is small. You can do a lot of cool stuff with custom ItemRenderers, but it would be nice to pick from a huge library of off-the-shelf widgets like you get with VB, ActiveX or Delphi components. - Egnaro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is dependent on your audience. I'm actually in the midst of building a small Flex app right now for a site that has a 90% Flash 9 install base according to our stats. Not to mention that most installs of Flash 7 or higher have auto-updating enabled and will update themselves to Flash 9 if they need to.
- whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+2@ElFredo
Have you used both much? When I was researching a new direction for our company to take on web apps (moving from simple HTML/CSS/Javascript to something more application-ish), I evaluated both. I found the difference to be quite stunning. As a developer (not limited by the term "web"), I found Flex to be the hands-down winner. - magic6435, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@bendavies
tell that to http://fotologue.jp/ - magic6435, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@emehrkay
'we'll see flex/apollo built into our next flash upgrades'
???ok now that one you are going to have to explain. you do know that flex is nothing but flash correct? all you need is flash player 9 and your all set. -
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