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March 29, 2004
What Flex Means to Flash Developers
Earlier this week Macromedia officially announced their latest server product Flex. It's reception however from the Flash community has been met with some confusion.
Where does Flex fit in? How will Flex effect Flash development?, etc. . .
First off Flex was not designed for Flash developers, mom & pop operations or small design shops. Flex is an enterprise application so it was designed for enterprise corporations.
With that, Flex does what Flash can not; it gives enterprise application developers the power to work with and utilize Flash without having to learn how to use the Flash IDE. This makes Flash a more approachable, more reasonable and a more friendly way to deliver UIs for enterprise wide applications. So not only does this introduce traditional enterprise application developers to Flash; it shows them that Flash is a viable technology for use on large scale enterprise wide applications.
Now while many Flash developers may feel threatened and/or uncertain as to where they fit into the flex model, the good news is that Flash developers are being put into a very good position indeed! Flex is NOT used to make components or for advanced content creation. Rather, it uses the pieces a Flash developer/designer provides and glues them all together (amongst other more technical things that are beyond the scope of this article). What this means to the Flash community is that many enterprise application developers will want to extend Flex's base functionality and do things that are beyond flex's scope (e.g. animations, games, custom components, etc).
In conclusion, as far as Flash developers should be concerned we just need to cross our fingers, toes and any other appendage that brings good luck and hope Flex succeeds. (Video game's aren't cheap!!) =)
Posted by erikbianchi at 11:57 PM | Comments (333)