I have been reading this thread with some interest (occassionally cheering and sometimes getting upset). We are currently using the Beta to build an elearning application so I feel I have some useful insights into the differences between the two. Firstly I don't think the difference is as straight-forward as forms vs animation. Many of the things we build will require a blend. Certainly if I was doing anything with forms I'd much rather be building it in Flex. It is much faster to develop form based things in Flex. There is a level of functionality built into the Flex framework that would take many man hours to reproduce in Flash. On the other side I wouldn't want to do any frame based (as opposed to actionscript based ) animation in Flex. But there is a whole spectrum of things that sit between these two extremes. Anything that could be built using actionscript can be built in Flex and once you get used to the way Flex does things I think they can be built faster and that they will be more reliable. Also you can use your Flash built animations in Flex but I'm not sure how easily you could use your Flex built forms in Flash 9. Someone suggested that Adobe hasn't done a good job explaining the difference between the two. I can't see how you can say that. There has been a public beta available for over 6 months and a site almost entirely devoted to it. The Samples Explorer is as clear an explanation as any developer should need. The only way to really understand the difference is to attempt to build something with it. Someone suggests that Adobe's motivation in creating a seperate IDE is profit. But the framework itself is free. I actually don't like Eclipse myself and have been using a seperate editor for Flex development. I always used to use Sepy for my actionscript. But I still had to use Flash for compiling. Now I can compile from the editor. I think it will depend on your background which style of development you will prefer and I think it's great that Flash (as a platform) can be adapted to suit different needs and is open to Open Source options. I also don't think it's helpful to talk about the difference as designers vs developers. I don't think that Flex Builder is a designer free app. I can easily imagine a workflow where the designer prepares the layout and look of an area and then the developer connects the functionality to it. I think the biggest problem with the introduction of Flex is the learning curve. Flex is a new metaphor for Flash development and there is a lot to get used to. But some of that new knowledge is really about the radical changes in Actionscript 3. That is something that will effect all of us sooner or later as it will be part of Flash 9. It is AS3 rather than Flex that will increase the distance between designers and devlopers. Bill Lane _______________________________________________ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
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