Jamie,
I have been using Flex for 3 months but personally have 8 years of Flash
experience. The key difference in moving from Flash to Flex is that Flex
allows you to reconfigure and reuse where Flash cannot. In 3 consecutive
projects late design changes to an application occurred seamlessly without
affecting the core application logic. Since Flex uses managed ids, similar
to a controls collection, you can move MXML around with near zero change to
application logic. Attempting to do this within Flash would have resulted in
a massive Library reorganization and taken 20x longer.
Flex allows you to work at a much higher level and automate many of the
mundane tasks Flash devs had to do to make RIAs. That said there are some
things that Flash can still do better but both tools are extremely useful to
Flex work. Integrating existing Flash content is very easy in Flex either
via loading or embedding.
Flex is also much deeper as a product than had originally thought. The
compiler is stricter and provides more detailed errors. Naming convention
errors fall the wayside as Flex detects the absence of a function or
references to a name that is not defined. These simple naming errors would
leave Flash devs banging their head on their desk for hours. Been there done
that.
I really like the WebServices integration. It could not be easier to
exchange data and integrate with external systems. On the projects I have
worked on the company has many existing SOAP services and wiring them into a
seamless application UI is really quite simple. We completed one project
integrating with JIRA bug tracking and one for a webmail system. Dare I say
it but WebServices in Flex might be too easy.
Another key feature for me is the ability to store application configuration
data in XML. Flex can compile XML into your application as a object
representation via the mx:Model tag. The following tag is the 1 or second
tag in every one of my applications that I build.
<mx:Model source="config.xml" id="config"/>
Anywhere within the application, I can read properties stored in the
"config" variable and use then to configure any type of data including
dataproviders, strings and other items. When I am done with development, the
XML configuration file allows the client to edit the application data as
needed without opening the MXML or AS files.
Although I am new to Flex, the past few months of working in it full time
have been a great learning experience. Having developed applications in
Flash, you will make a seamless jump to Flex. Although I am still learning,
everything is still within the Flash player and all existing Flash skills
translate well in an application context. Your V2 and AS experience will
allow you to Flex much deeper. I find myself running circles around the Java
devs working in Flex given my deep understanding of the Player and
ActionScript.
My 2 cents,
Ted Patrick
PowerSDK Software
> >Generally, are people happy with the Flex environment ? Are you
> >finding it a productive development environment and are you happy
> >with the apps you're creating ?
> >
> >Are there many really nasty 'problem areas' that you're waiting for
> >Macromedia to address in a future release that you've found
> >impossible - or very hard - to workaround ?
> >
> >Compared to developing a similar app in Flash, how're you finding
> >the development speeds ?
> >
> >Thanks in advance!
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >Jamie.
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