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I've done some stuff in Flex, and it's nice. I work with people who really like it. Silverlight and JavaFX sound cool in their own way. And AIR makes sense. But

by maxwell 19y ago

I've done some stuff in Flex, and it's nice. I work with people who really like it. Silverlight and JavaFX sound cool in their own way. And AIR makes sense. But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible. They might be dead ends.

Flemlord 19y ago
Developer convenience/speed is our main motivation for considering Silverlight, but a close second is that we'll be able to create a desktop app with the same code.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
swombat 19y ago
"don't really make anything new possible" - hardly. Flex allows easy integration of UI concepts like drag-n-drop, neat animations with low cpu usage, integration of streaming media, lowered response times thanks to model caching on the client... and the ease of development should NOT be discounted... Users tend to like an application that exists more than one that doesn't. Ease and speed of development are a huge bonus. As for the "invonvenience" aspect, interestingly, I've found that the only people who resent Flash in some way are all geeks. The rest of the world is blithely ignorant as to the difference until you explain it to them, and even then they don't care. So, if your primary market is over-opinionated and out-of-date geeks (rather than the more forward thinking ones who are actively writing or learning Flex by now), then definitely don't use Flex. If, on the other hand, you plan to target the rest of the world, Flex seems like a good bet! PS: don't use Flex for writing your blog or news site! RIAs are for applications (gmail, gdocs, rescuetime, basecamp), not pure content sites (blogs, slashdot, reddit, NYTimes..).
- dbrush 19y ago
  Agreed. And from the above... "But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible." Not acknowledging your presumption that it's an inconvenience to users, the above could essentially be said about any AJAX/Javascript framework too.

by maxwell 19y ago

Flemlord 19y ago

Developer convenience/speed is our main motivation for considering Silverlight, but a close second is that we'll be able to create a desktop app with the same code.

deleted 19y ago
[deleted]

swombat 19y ago

"don't really make anything new possible" - hardly. Flex allows easy integration of UI concepts like drag-n-drop, neat animations with low cpu usage, integration of streaming media, lowered response times thanks to model caching on the client... and the ease of development should NOT be discounted... Users tend to like an application that exists more than one that doesn't. Ease and speed of development are a huge bonus. As for the "invonvenience" aspect, interestingly, I've found that the only people who resent Flash in some way are all geeks. The rest of the world is blithely ignorant as to the difference until you explain it to them, and even then they don't care. So, if your primary market is over-opinionated and out-of-date geeks (rather than the more forward thinking ones who are actively writing or learning Flex by now), then definitely don't use Flex. If, on the other hand, you plan to target the rest of the world, Flex seems like a good bet! PS: don't use Flex for writing your blog or news site! RIAs are for applications (gmail, gdocs, rescuetime, basecamp), not pure content sites (blogs, slashdot, reddit, NYTimes..).

dbrush 19y ago
Agreed. And from the above... "But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible." Not acknowledging your presumption that it's an inconvenience to users, the above could essentially be said about any AJAX/Javascript framework too.