3 ms·

Sounds a lot like pressure from Silverlight's DLR allowance for multiple languages, doesn't it? If so, this is a good example of competition "waking-up" age-ol

by thorax 19y ago

Sounds a lot like pressure from Silverlight's DLR allowance for multiple languages, doesn't it? If so, this is a good example of competition "waking-up" age-old platforms (like Flash).

jcl 19y ago
No kidding. Consider that as of April 2005, a Flex license had a $29,000 price tag (I haven't been able to find more recent numbers): http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/12200 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/12200 Then, two years later, they announced that the Flex SDK would be free and eventually open source: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/140241 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/14024... ...which was within a month after Microsoft released Silverlight.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- wmf 19y ago
  Flex 1.x was a joke, but Flex Builder 2.0 was only $500. Making the Flex SDK (but not the IDE) open appears to be a case of openwashing, since most Flex developers are probably still buying the IDE.
- sakri 19y ago
  As far as I can remember, Flex1 was a "server". This (I suppose)was an excuse for the outrageous price. Users would upload their MXML and AS files, then the server would spit out '.swf' files to client requests. A compiled swf was cached until new MXML or AS files were uploaded. It was a "one licence" per company approach, rather than one licence per developer one.
dhouston 19y ago
by "supporting" other languages they mean they can compile the interpreter's c/c++ source code using their LLVM->actionscript bridge (http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1095 http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1095) they came up with and then run the script on top of that actionscriptified interpreter. which, even for people like me who drink the interpreted-languages-are-fast-enough koolaid, seems like a lot of levels of indirection :) i think the CLR approach seems a little more straightforward: "native" interpreters that compile e.g. python->the CLR IL (instead of python->interpreter c source->llvm->actionscript). and i doubt you could just take e.g. the python interpreter and throw it into a SWF -- certainly pieces of the interpreter along with C modules that interact with the filesystem, etc. would need to be tweaked to deal with the AIR runtime. cool idea though, and they even got quake 1 (!) running in a SWF (see the video below in this thread... wild stuff)

by thorax 19y ago

Sounds a lot like pressure from Silverlight's DLR allowance for multiple languages, doesn't it? If so, this is a good example of competition "waking-up" age-old platforms (like Flash).

jcl 19y ago

No kidding. Consider that as of April 2005, a Flex license had a $29,000 price tag (I haven't been able to find more recent numbers): http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/12200 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/12200 Then, two years later, they announced that the Flex SDK would be free and eventually open source: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/140241 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/26/14024... ...which was within a month after Microsoft released Silverlight.

deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
wmf 19y ago
Flex 1.x was a joke, but Flex Builder 2.0 was only $500. Making the Flex SDK (but not the IDE) open appears to be a case of openwashing, since most Flex developers are probably still buying the IDE.
sakri 19y ago
As far as I can remember, Flex1 was a "server". This (I suppose)was an excuse for the outrageous price. Users would upload their MXML and AS files, then the server would spit out '.swf' files to client requests. A compiled swf was cached until new MXML or AS files were uploaded. It was a "one licence" per company approach, rather than one licence per developer one.

dhouston 19y ago

by "supporting" other languages they mean they can compile the interpreter's c/c++ source code using their LLVM->actionscript bridge (http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1095 http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1095) they came up with and then run the script on top of that actionscriptified interpreter. which, even for people like me who drink the interpreted-languages-are-fast-enough koolaid, seems like a lot of levels of indirection :) i think the CLR approach seems a little more straightforward: "native" interpreters that compile e.g. python->the CLR IL (instead of python->interpreter c source->llvm->actionscript). and i doubt you could just take e.g. the python interpreter and throw it into a SWF -- certainly pieces of the interpreter along with C modules that interact with the filesystem, etc. would need to be tweaked to deal with the AIR runtime. cool idea though, and they even got quake 1 (!) running in a SWF (see the video below in this thread... wild stuff)