[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
I would have to concur with Jeremy on this. I've just wasted most of my saturday trying to do something that should be relatively straight forward in Flex. So far I've got nowhere thanks to - broken examples on the flex livedocs (and the SDK documentation) - lots of people on flexcoders asking questions on similar or related topics and getting no suitable answers - a real lack of worthwhile examples (self contained and working, not just a small code snip out of context) - not enough sample apps with code (Adobe supplied, RIAforge or otherwise) - books written using beta versions and therefore changes since then it's a painful uphill battle and not a good situation, methinks. my 2c b --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hmmm.. Last couple of days has been somewhat heated discussions on the list, my bad on a few parts but taking a step back, thinking about what you guys/gals need and want from all of this, i can't but help understand where some of you want to head in terms of direction around this? On one part, all have indicated OT is not good. I agree, I reviewed some of my posts and I think at some stage, this list went back to it's old habits for me where it wasn't so much about CFAUSSIE but socialising with CFAUSSIE. Yet, in the past 6months it's picked up to being on topic. That being said, what's going on in this thread is more FLEX related then CF? So - What is the aim of this thread? What is it you all want from this going forward. Jeremy's indicated he has pain points, Barry's supporting this while others are stating that it was more Jeremy's fault for not scoping or setting expectations correctly (which I do disagree with). Yet, on the flipside it's not Coldfusion related? I simply wonder what this list is about as it would be helpful to adjust my posture for one and others I'm guessing, so that when we do contribute to this list, it's considered on topic and relevant. Is this an Adobe only centric list? (ie FLEX, Apollo, Coldfusion, LiveCycle etc) or is it Coldfusion centric with all pieces relating to Coldfusion? what are those pieces? Lastly, whom are these complaints about FLEX that Jeremy and Barry have indicated are directed at/to? and what resolution is expected or if any? Scott. On 4/29/07, Barry Beattie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would have to concur with Jeremy on this. I've just wasted most of my saturday trying to do something that should be relatively straight forward in Flex. So far I've got nowhere thanks to - broken examples on the flex livedocs (and the SDK documentation) - lots of people on flexcoders asking questions on similar or related topics and getting no suitable answers - a real lack of worthwhile examples (self contained and working, not just a small code snip out of context) - not enough sample apps with code (Adobe supplied, RIAforge or otherwise) - books written using beta versions and therefore changes since then it's a painful uphill battle and not a good situation, methinks. my 2c b -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Lastly, whom are these complaints about FLEX ... directed at/to? cfaussie members thinking of Flex and what resolution is expected or if any? caveat emptor --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hi Andrew, Thanks for the update on the book. I'll add that to my list of must reads. I mean since you taught me CF its only fair I buy one of your books! hahahahaha. And make sure all that money is pouring in for you! And Scott. Not only will I raid your bookshelf but I will raid your fridge too as I know your wife makes yummy food. As for the OT thingo. The reason I personally wrote it here is because I'm a ColdFusion programmer. So developing FLEX coming from a CF background I thought it would be more appropriate. Barry, you articulate much better then I. Are you a teacher or something :-P!! I Also ran into those issues. Jeremy On Apr 29, 3:34 am, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmmm.. Last couple of days has been somewhat heated discussions on the list, my bad on a few parts but taking a step back, thinking about what you guys/gals need and want from all of this, i can't but help understand where some of you want to head in terms of direction around this? On one part, all have indicated OT is not good. I agree, I reviewed some of my posts and I think at some stage, this list went back to it's old habits for me where it wasn't so much about CFAUSSIE but socialising with CFAUSSIE. Yet, in the past 6months it's picked up to being on topic. That being said, what's going on in this thread is more FLEX related then CF? So - What is the aim of this thread? What is it you all want from this going forward. Jeremy's indicated he has pain points, Barry's supporting this while others are stating that it was more Jeremy's fault for not scoping or setting expectations correctly (which I do disagree with). Yet, on the flipside it's not Coldfusion related? I simply wonder what this list is about as it would be helpful to adjust my posture for one and others I'm guessing, so that when we do contribute to this list, it's considered on topic and relevant. Is this an Adobe only centric list? (ie FLEX, Apollo, Coldfusion, LiveCycle etc) or is it Coldfusion centric with all pieces relating to Coldfusion? what are those pieces? Lastly, whom are these complaints about FLEX that Jeremy and Barry have indicated are directed at/to? and what resolution is expected or if any? Scott. On 4/29/07, Barry Beattie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would have to concur with Jeremy on this. I've just wasted most of my saturday trying to do something that should be relatively straight forward in Flex. So far I've got nowhere thanks to - broken examples on the flex livedocs (and the SDK documentation) - lots of people on flexcoders asking questions on similar or related topics and getting no suitable answers - a real lack of worthwhile examples (self contained and working, not just a small code snip out of context) - not enough sample apps with code (Adobe supplied, RIAforge or otherwise) - books written using beta versions and therefore changes since then it's a painful uphill battle and not a good situation, methinks. my 2c b -- Regards, Scott Barneshttp://www.mossyblog.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Maybe what you were planning on doing would have been best done in html anyway. what were you building was flex the right job? we use some flex/apollo at work, but more as a win application replacement then a web application replacement. the department that uses the app simply sits there all day swiping bar codes with a bar code reader, the app gets all the details for that order and displays em and updates the order status, the user never uses the keyboard once (except to log in) is quite cool, but the coolness wasn't the reason it was chosen. M@ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
With a post like this, no wonder people are jumped on:-) Serioulsy, I applaud your atempt but to go into a project without knowing your tools is dangerous. And like every programming language I have come across, learning them have been easy. But the surface is always just that a surface, and when delving deeper it can be harder and CF is no differeent. When you start introducing Coldspring and MG:U or reactor, to name a few it throws in some very big complexity and Flex is no different. On 4/27/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that Flex has. The reason I raised this issue with all of you, is I truly believe that flex IS not ready for the main stream development environment. Its close but its just not ready. When I went to WebDU which I have nicked name FlexDU I spoke to Ted Patrick about the learning curve of Flex and what I could do to help reduce that learning curve and even he acknowledged that there is a steep learning curve with Flex and it is an issue that Adobe has recognized. He said wait for some more books to come out which should help. So perhaps now that Flex is open source we will see alot more tutorials and better resources. Jeremy On Apr 27, 7:32 pm, Andrew Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With a post like this, no wonder people are jumped on:-) Serioulsy, I applaud your atempt but to go into a project without knowing your tools is dangerous. And like every programming language I have come across, learning them have been easy. But the surface is always just that a surface, and when delving deeper it can be harder and CF is no differeent. When you start introducing Coldspring and MG:U or reactor, to name a few it throws in some very big complexity and Flex is no different. On 4/27/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty In your own time or to send the developers to training, or to have a consultant/experienced dev with that technology to come in and train/help out with the first project or 2. or have spare time at work and an intranet that ain't to important or one of those learn a language while you sleep cd's and just hope it doesn't skip during ya sleep or ya might end up writing never ending loops. M@ On 4/27/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that Flex has. The reason I raised this issue with all of you, is I truly believe that flex IS not ready for the main stream development environment. Its close but its just not ready. When I went to WebDU which I have nicked name FlexDU I spoke to Ted Patrick about the learning curve of Flex and what I could do to help reduce that learning curve and even he acknowledged that there is a steep learning curve with Flex and it is an issue that Adobe has recognized. He said wait for some more books to come out which should help. So perhaps now that Flex is open source we will see alot more tutorials and better resources. Jeremy On Apr 27, 7:32 pm, Andrew Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With a post like this, no wonder people are jumped on:-) Serioulsy, I applaud your atempt but to go into a project without knowing your tools is dangerous. And like every programming language I have come across, learning them have been easy. But the surface is always just that a surface, and when delving deeper it can be harder and CF is no differeent. When you start introducing Coldspring and MG:U or reactor, to name a few it throws in some very big complexity and Flex is no different. On 4/27/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
It's true. And I don't really want to sound like a snob (but hey, I'm a mac user, I have ample amount of smugness) but don't you think that as developers, we should know this stuff (OOP)? I understand that it can be a bit hard to wrap your head around, but if you persevere, the bounties are lavish. It took me about two rather stressful, sleepless nights to wrap my head around Flash 8's component framework. That has paid off, though, because not only do I have a better understanding of how mixins work, I can build Flash Components (some will say they are bad, but that's a separate topic), and the resulting exposure to patterns has made it easy for me to absorb how a lot of Java and Flex stuff work. Admittedly, I have very little practical flex experience, but I can read all about without scratching my head. I am also picking up Spring, and the little understanding I had about Flash8's Comp. Framework has been a springboard to understanding all the AOP/MVC stuff Spring does. I win. I can feel your pain, though. I tried to learn Mach-ii a few years ago, when I first started to learn CF, and boy what a headache... Spring seems so much better written... but then again, it might also be because I've matured more as a developer. It's the same thing with those people who say 'java is hard, it takes forever to build anything'... that's true... if your java is limited to public static void main. I'm learning Spring, and really, it's been the most pleasurable learning experience I've had in the 2 or 3 years I've been a developer. (Sorry for ranting. I even forgot my own point... ) Bjorn Schultheiss wrote: It's easier to learn coming from a Java or Flash background. If your lucky enough for a company to pay you for 6 months while you learn any software, all the best. But to set commercial deadlines on such a proposal, madness.. On 27/04/2007, at 2:18 PM, Scott Barnes wrote: Bah :) no such thing is a perfectly executed project in software, we are all humans. Flex is RAD initially but it hurts after you want to get deeper into mucking about with the code base. I blame mix-ins to be honest (decorater pattern) as it's quite confusing for the untrained folks. Secondly, what company is going to say let Jeremy sit on Flex for 6 months to get up to speed on it? I see this quite a lot in the years of doing FLEX, I actually used to get a lot of my work bailing out the Jeremy's so it's not isolated :) Personally if both Adobe or Micosoft can't get the Jeremy''s of this world up to speed in under 6 months with GUI tier development, we failed. We need to work harder.. On 4/27/07, *Bjorn Schultheiss* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So let me get this straight. You set an expectation of how long it would take to complete a project in software you are not familiar with and now your disappointed because your expectation was not met. Please, spare me... On 27/04/2007, at 2:05 PM, Lucas wrote: cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, *Scott Barnes* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Speaking of books, Can anyone recommend a set of essential Flex books for developers who are, much like most people on this list, quite advanced with Cold Fusion / Java development skills, and are starting to embark on Flex projects? Thanks! From: cfaussie@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Toby Tremayne Sent: Saturday, 28 April 2007 12:17 PM To: cfaussie@googlegroups.com Subject: [cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down I'd like to weigh in on this too - Jeremy i can understand your difficulties attempting to get your head around flex in so short a time, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) All companies are guilty of focusing on what the good Dr Hilliard calls the Elevator Pitch - showing the bells and whistles that make things incredibly easy, and not focusing on the long term requirements. But to be totally honest that's no different than allaire/macromedia et al have ever done with CF. Low entry barrier - some things are dead easy to do. That doesn't mean you'll be able to build complex apps in a day. Think about it - we all know it take 2 minutes to use cfquery and cfoutput and write a dynamic page to view data in a db. But none of us assume that means we're going to be able to write enterprise apps integrating with all manner of things and using complex OO frameworks etc in no time. 2) AS3 is pretty easy to learn in and of itself - but that doesn't mean you're going to know the whole API and all the ins and outs in a week. You can knock up simple little example apps in no time at all, but if you're looking at building anything serious, you need to take the time to understand the event model and asynchronous calls among other things. I don't see this at all as a failing of the language OR of adobe. Anyone who leaps into a new technology for a short fixed deadline based on just the elevator pitch is bound to feel pain. 3) Once you've learned the basic differences and gotten past the web based request/response paradigm, you'll find flex magnificent -and very RAD. There is yet to be a language developed that just lets you say I want this and this and this and this and it magically works. I hope you get the chance to give flex another try. When I first had at it, I was in exactly the same boat as you - and I had trouble shifting paradigms in my thinking. But with the advice of people on the lists and reading the books I'm absolutely loving it now - it's a seriously powerful tool and is going to be very important in the not too distant future I think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that it doesn't happen overnight. Toby On 27/04/2007, at 22:38 , cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that Flex has. The reason I raised this issue with all of you, is I truly believe that flex IS not ready for the main stream development environment. Its close but its just not ready. When I went to WebDU which I have nicked name FlexDU I spoke to Ted Patrick about the learning curve of Flex and what I could do to help reduce that learning curve and even he acknowledged that there is a steep learning curve with Flex and it is an issue that Adobe has recognized. He said wait for some more books to come out which should help. So perhaps now that Flex is open source we will see alot more tutorials and better resources. Jeremy On Apr 27, 7:32 pm, Andrew Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With a post like this, no wonder people are jumped on:-) Serioulsy, I applaud your atempt but to go into a project without knowing your tools is dangerous. And like every programming language I have come across, learning them have been easy. But the surface is always just that a surface, and when delving deeper it can be harder and CF is no differeent. When you start introducing Coldspring and MG:U or reactor, to name a few it throws in some very big complexity and Flex is no different. On 4/27/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. --- Life is poetry, write it in your own words --- Toby Tremayne Senior Technical Consultant Lyricist Software 0416 048 090 ICQ: 13107913
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hi Toby, Thanks for you input. I agree I won't give up Flex as I believe it has potential but I won't recommend it for major/minor applications. I will stick with .NET or ColdFusion. I believe the whole RIA is just still too young. I will say this one more time. 1. We had an external consultancy validate code and methodologies 2. The deadline wasn't missed. (yet). 3. My disappointment was two pronged. a.) Although they explain the concepts behind Flex it really only scratches the surface. b.) The lack of examples. I had a mate of mine warn me who knows flex back to front. Don't do a flex app or your project will fail. It hasn't failed yet but I understand what he means now. I truly hope that making Flex Open source will infact increase all aspects of its programming. But until then I will stick to what I originally stated. I have told everyone in my immediate team that we will not be doing another Flex application until things change. Jeremy. On Apr 28, 12:17 pm, Toby Tremayne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to weigh in on this too - Jeremy i can understand your difficulties attempting to get your head around flex in so short a time, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) All companies are guilty of focusing on what the good Dr Hilliard calls the Elevator Pitch - showing the bells and whistles that make things incredibly easy, and not focusing on the long term requirements. But to be totally honest that's no different than allaire/macromedia et al have ever done with CF. Low entry barrier - some things are dead easy to do. That doesn't mean you'll be able to build complex apps in a day. Think about it - we all know it take 2 minutes to use cfquery and cfoutput and write a dynamic page to view data in a db. But none of us assume that means we're going to be able to write enterprise apps integrating with all manner of things and using complex OO frameworks etc in no time. 2) AS3 is pretty easy to learn in and of itself - but that doesn't mean you're going to know the whole API and all the ins and outs in a week. You can knock up simple little example apps in no time at all, but if you're looking at building anything serious, you need to take the time to understand the event model and asynchronous calls among other things. I don't see this at all as a failing of the language OR of adobe. Anyone who leaps into a new technology for a short fixed deadline based on just the elevator pitch is bound to feel pain. 3) Once you've learned the basic differences and gotten past the web based request/response paradigm, you'll find flex magnificent -and very RAD. There is yet to be a language developed that just lets you say I want this and this and this and this and it magically works. I hope you get the chance to give flex another try. When I first had at it, I was in exactly the same boat as you - and I had trouble shifting paradigms in my thinking. But with the advice of people on the lists and reading the books I'm absolutely loving it now - it's a seriously powerful tool and is going to be very important in the not too distant future I think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that it doesn't happen overnight. Toby On 27/04/2007, at 22:38 , cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that Flex has. The reason I raised this issue with all of you, is I truly believe that flex IS not ready for the main stream development environment. Its close but its just not ready. When I went to WebDU which I have nicked name FlexDU I spoke to Ted Patrick about the learning curve of Flex and what I could do to help reduce that learning curve and even he acknowledged that there is a steep learning curve with Flex and it is an issue that Adobe has recognized. He said wait for some more books to come out which should help. So perhaps now that Flex is open source we will see alot more tutorials and better resources. Jeremy On Apr 27, 7:32 pm, Andrew Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With a post like this, no wonder people are jumped on:-) Serioulsy, I applaud your atempt but to go into a project without knowing your tools is dangerous. And like every programming language I have come across, learning them have been easy. But the surface is always just that a surface, and when delving deeper it can be harder and CF is no differeent. When you start introducing
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Ryan your best bet to get a good feel for Flex is Total Training for Adobe Flex 2: Rich Internet Applications. It's an example flex project from beginning to end. It doesn't get bogged down in all the class functionality and covers all the important topics, right up to flex data services. It's the resource for the exam IMO. The one I am waiting for at the moment is Programming Flex 2. The sample chapters are well written... http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/progflex.html. Due in April 2007. Others.. Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns, ActionScript 3.0Cookbook Cheers Angus On 28/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Toby, Thanks for you input. I agree I won't give up Flex as I believe it has potential but I won't recommend it for major/minor applications. I will stick with .NET or ColdFusion. I believe the whole RIA is just still too young. I will say this one more time. 1. We had an external consultancy validate code and methodologies 2. The deadline wasn't missed. (yet). 3. My disappointment was two pronged. a.) Although they explain the concepts behind Flex it really only scratches the surface. b.) The lack of examples. I had a mate of mine warn me who knows flex back to front. Don't do a flex app or your project will fail. It hasn't failed yet but I understand what he means now. I truly hope that making Flex Open source will infact increase all aspects of its programming. But until then I will stick to what I originally stated. I have told everyone in my immediate team that we will not be doing another Flex application until things change. Jeremy. On Apr 28, 12:17 pm, Toby Tremayne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to weigh in on this too - Jeremy i can understand your difficulties attempting to get your head around flex in so short a time, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) All companies are guilty of focusing on what the good Dr Hilliard calls the Elevator Pitch - showing the bells and whistles that make things incredibly easy, and not focusing on the long term requirements. But to be totally honest that's no different than allaire/macromedia et al have ever done with CF. Low entry barrier - some things are dead easy to do. That doesn't mean you'll be able to build complex apps in a day. Think about it - we all know it take 2 minutes to use cfquery and cfoutput and write a dynamic page to view data in a db. But none of us assume that means we're going to be able to write enterprise apps integrating with all manner of things and using complex OO frameworks etc in no time. 2) AS3 is pretty easy to learn in and of itself - but that doesn't mean you're going to know the whole API and all the ins and outs in a week. You can knock up simple little example apps in no time at all, but if you're looking at building anything serious, you need to take the time to understand the event model and asynchronous calls among other things. I don't see this at all as a failing of the language OR of adobe. Anyone who leaps into a new technology for a short fixed deadline based on just the elevator pitch is bound to feel pain. 3) Once you've learned the basic differences and gotten past the web based request/response paradigm, you'll find flex magnificent -and very RAD. There is yet to be a language developed that just lets you say I want this and this and this and this and it magically works. I hope you get the chance to give flex another try. When I first had at it, I was in exactly the same boat as you - and I had trouble shifting paradigms in my thinking. But with the advice of people on the lists and reading the books I'm absolutely loving it now - it's a seriously powerful tool and is going to be very important in the not too distant future I think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that it doesn't happen overnight. Toby On 27/04/2007, at 22:38 , cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that Flex has. The reason I raised this issue with all of you, is I truly believe that flex IS not ready for the main stream development environment. Its close but its just not ready. When I went to WebDU which I have nicked name FlexDU I spoke to Ted Patrick about the learning curve of Flex and what I could do to help reduce that learning curve and even he acknowledged that
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hi Angus, Yeah I 'm reading one at the moment written by some of the programmers at Adobe. It's pretty basic good to get a starting point. But Ted Patrick suggested the ActionScript3.0 Cookbook and the one that is Due in April. I have my order in already. Jeremy On Apr 28, 1:51 pm, Angus Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ryan your best bet to get a good feel for Flex is Total Training for Adobe Flex 2: Rich Internet Applications. It's an example flex project from beginning to end. It doesn't get bogged down in all the class functionality and covers all the important topics, right up to flex data services. It's the resource for the exam IMO. The one I am waiting for at the moment is Programming Flex 2. The sample chapters are well written...http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/progflex.html. Due in April 2007. Others.. Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns, ActionScript 3.0Cookbook Cheers Angus On 28/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Toby, Thanks for you input. I agree I won't give up Flex as I believe it has potential but I won't recommend it for major/minor applications. I will stick with .NET or ColdFusion. I believe the whole RIA is just still too young. I will say this one more time. 1. We had an external consultancy validate code and methodologies 2. The deadline wasn't missed. (yet). 3. My disappointment was two pronged. a.) Although they explain the concepts behind Flex it really only scratches the surface. b.) The lack of examples. I had a mate of mine warn me who knows flex back to front. Don't do a flex app or your project will fail. It hasn't failed yet but I understand what he means now. I truly hope that making Flex Open source will infact increase all aspects of its programming. But until then I will stick to what I originally stated. I have told everyone in my immediate team that we will not be doing another Flex application until things change. Jeremy. On Apr 28, 12:17 pm, Toby Tremayne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to weigh in on this too - Jeremy i can understand your difficulties attempting to get your head around flex in so short a time, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) All companies are guilty of focusing on what the good Dr Hilliard calls the Elevator Pitch - showing the bells and whistles that make things incredibly easy, and not focusing on the long term requirements. But to be totally honest that's no different than allaire/macromedia et al have ever done with CF. Low entry barrier - some things are dead easy to do. That doesn't mean you'll be able to build complex apps in a day. Think about it - we all know it take 2 minutes to use cfquery and cfoutput and write a dynamic page to view data in a db. But none of us assume that means we're going to be able to write enterprise apps integrating with all manner of things and using complex OO frameworks etc in no time. 2) AS3 is pretty easy to learn in and of itself - but that doesn't mean you're going to know the whole API and all the ins and outs in a week. You can knock up simple little example apps in no time at all, but if you're looking at building anything serious, you need to take the time to understand the event model and asynchronous calls among other things. I don't see this at all as a failing of the language OR of adobe. Anyone who leaps into a new technology for a short fixed deadline based on just the elevator pitch is bound to feel pain. 3) Once you've learned the basic differences and gotten past the web based request/response paradigm, you'll find flex magnificent -and very RAD. There is yet to be a language developed that just lets you say I want this and this and this and this and it magically works. I hope you get the chance to give flex another try. When I first had at it, I was in exactly the same boat as you - and I had trouble shifting paradigms in my thinking. But with the advice of people on the lists and reading the books I'm absolutely loving it now - it's a seriously powerful tool and is going to be very important in the not too distant future I think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that it doesn't happen overnight. Toby On 27/04/2007, at 22:38 , cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it in HTML/ColdFusion. We actually discussed it with a Third party i.e. NOT me. So when is a good time to start working with the new tools? The only way to fully learn a language is to get dirty with it. My issue that I have with Adobe is that they DID not fully explain the complexity and learning curve that
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Jeremy when I get back feel free to raid my bookshelf as i have a few FLEX 3 books you can borrow... (sorry assumed you had books man, you could of told me that earlier) On 4/28/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Angus, Yeah I 'm reading one at the moment written by some of the programmers at Adobe. It's pretty basic good to get a starting point. But Ted Patrick suggested the ActionScript3.0 Cookbook and the one that is Due in April. I have my order in already. Jeremy On Apr 28, 1:51 pm, Angus Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ryan your best bet to get a good feel for Flex is Total Training for Adobe Flex 2: Rich Internet Applications. It's an example flex project from beginning to end. It doesn't get bogged down in all the class functionality and covers all the important topics, right up to flex data services. It's the resource for the exam IMO. The one I am waiting for at the moment is Programming Flex 2. The sample chapters are well written...http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/progflex.html. Due in April 2007. Others.. Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns, ActionScript 3.0Cookbook Cheers Angus On 28/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Toby, Thanks for you input. I agree I won't give up Flex as I believe it has potential but I won't recommend it for major/minor applications. I will stick with .NET or ColdFusion. I believe the whole RIA is just still too young. I will say this one more time. 1. We had an external consultancy validate code and methodologies 2. The deadline wasn't missed. (yet). 3. My disappointment was two pronged. a.) Although they explain the concepts behind Flex it really only scratches the surface. b.) The lack of examples. I had a mate of mine warn me who knows flex back to front. Don't do a flex app or your project will fail. It hasn't failed yet but I understand what he means now. I truly hope that making Flex Open source will infact increase all aspects of its programming. But until then I will stick to what I originally stated. I have told everyone in my immediate team that we will not be doing another Flex application until things change. Jeremy. On Apr 28, 12:17 pm, Toby Tremayne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to weigh in on this too - Jeremy i can understand your difficulties attempting to get your head around flex in so short a time, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make: 1) All companies are guilty of focusing on what the good Dr Hilliard calls the Elevator Pitch - showing the bells and whistles that make things incredibly easy, and not focusing on the long term requirements. But to be totally honest that's no different than allaire/macromedia et al have ever done with CF. Low entry barrier - some things are dead easy to do. That doesn't mean you'll be able to build complex apps in a day. Think about it - we all know it take 2 minutes to use cfquery and cfoutput and write a dynamic page to view data in a db. But none of us assume that means we're going to be able to write enterprise apps integrating with all manner of things and using complex OO frameworks etc in no time. 2) AS3 is pretty easy to learn in and of itself - but that doesn't mean you're going to know the whole API and all the ins and outs in a week. You can knock up simple little example apps in no time at all, but if you're looking at building anything serious, you need to take the time to understand the event model and asynchronous calls among other things. I don't see this at all as a failing of the language OR of adobe. Anyone who leaps into a new technology for a short fixed deadline based on just the elevator pitch is bound to feel pain. 3) Once you've learned the basic differences and gotten past the web based request/response paradigm, you'll find flex magnificent -and very RAD. There is yet to be a language developed that just lets you say I want this and this and this and this and it magically works. I hope you get the chance to give flex another try. When I first had at it, I was in exactly the same boat as you - and I had trouble shifting paradigms in my thinking. But with the advice of people on the lists and reading the books I'm absolutely loving it now - it's a seriously powerful tool and is going to be very important in the not too distant future I think. Don't be discouraged by the fact that it doesn't happen overnight. Toby On 27/04/2007, at 22:38 , cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew, I didn't go into this decision lightly. In fact it wasn't my ultimate decision at all. I work for a HUGE company in which those decisions are anaylsed to the endth degree. And yes in high-end sight we should have done it
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Our UG library has a couple (all of them I think): Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source http://www.actcfug.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=LibraryViewLibraryID=70 Recommended as this deals with CF integration more. and: Developing Rich Clients with Macromedia Flex http://www.actcfug.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=LibraryViewLibraryID=6 also have: ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook http://www.actcfug.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=LibraryViewLibraryID=66 Getting quite a varied library now with 74 bookshttp://www.actcfug.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=LibraryList(Office 2007 Missing Manual is on the way). -- Peter Tilbrook ColdGen Internet Solutions President, ACT and Region ColdFusion Users Group PO Box 2247 Queanbeyan, NSW, 2620 AUSTRALIA http://www.coldgen.com/ http://www.actcfug.com/ Tel: +61-2-6284-2727 Mob: +61-0432-897-437 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN Messenger Live: Desktop General --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hi Jeremy I'd agree that there is quite a learning curve for Flex. The framework is very comprehensive, lots of classes and it's easy to get lost. It's also object oriented and there are some concepts such as event handling that can do your head in at times. It's also significantly different to CF. Having said that I think Flex is like any new language. You've gotta spend the time learning it. Maybe Adobe PR did oversell it's simplicity. What sort of application was it? Certainly don't start a critical Flex project without going through some training first but a single pager app should be nailed easily. I'm really interested in what sort of tutorials would cover the gap. Can you be more specific ie topics for learning. I'd be happy to write some myself. There are pretty good support materials out there. Flexcoders mailing list namely. Also half a dozen books have been published now on Flex, a bunch of training videos from Lynda and Training from the Source and literally hundreds of custom components, example code, blogs and so on. By framework do you mean Cairngorm or ARF? Frameworks for big projects, Flex event handling for small. Jeremy, don't give up on Flex just yet. There's a touch of early adopter / bleeding edge with Flex but it's bedding down quite nicely. You've only got to look at the cf job ads asking about Flex experience to know where we're heading. Angus On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- http://allthgo.com Phone: +61 (0) 7 3857 3880 Mobile: +61 (0) 409 721 701 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com -- Lucas http://www.thebitbucket.net/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
So let me get this straight. You set an expectation of how long it would take to complete a project in software you are not familiar with and now your disappointed because your expectation was not met. Please, spare me... On 27/04/2007, at 2:05 PM, Lucas wrote: cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com Regards, Bjorn Schultheiss Senior Developer Personalised Communication Power Level 2, 31 Coventry St. South Melbourne 3205, VIC Australia T: +61 3 9674 7400 F: +61 3 9645 9160 W: http://www.qdc.net.au ((This transmission is confidential and intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender.---)) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Bah :) no such thing is a perfectly executed project in software, we are all humans. Flex is RAD initially but it hurts after you want to get deeper into mucking about with the code base. I blame mix-ins to be honest (decorater pattern) as it's quite confusing for the untrained folks. Secondly, what company is going to say let Jeremy sit on Flex for 6 months to get up to speed on it? I see this quite a lot in the years of doing FLEX, I actually used to get a lot of my work bailing out the Jeremy's so it's not isolated :) Personally if both Adobe or Micosoft can't get the Jeremy''s of this world up to speed in under 6 months with GUI tier development, we failed. We need to work harder.. On 4/27/07, Bjorn Schultheiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So let me get this straight. You set an expectation of how long it would take to complete a project in software you are not familiar with and now your disappointed because your expectation was not met. Please, spare me... On 27/04/2007, at 2:05 PM, Lucas wrote: cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com Regards, Bjorn Schultheiss Senior Developer [image: QDC] Personalised Communication Power Level 2, 31 Coventry St. South Melbourne 3205, VIC Australia T: +61 3 9674 7400 F: +61 3 9645 9160 W: http://www.qdc.net.au ((This transmission is confidential and intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender.---)) -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
It's easier to learn coming from a Java or Flash background. If your lucky enough for a company to pay you for 6 months while you learn any software, all the best. But to set commercial deadlines on such a proposal, madness.. On 27/04/2007, at 2:18 PM, Scott Barnes wrote: Bah :) no such thing is a perfectly executed project in software, we are all humans. Flex is RAD initially but it hurts after you want to get deeper into mucking about with the code base. I blame mix-ins to be honest (decorater pattern) as it's quite confusing for the untrained folks. Secondly, what company is going to say let Jeremy sit on Flex for 6 months to get up to speed on it? I see this quite a lot in the years of doing FLEX, I actually used to get a lot of my work bailing out the Jeremy's so it's not isolated :) Personally if both Adobe or Micosoft can't get the Jeremy''s of this world up to speed in under 6 months with GUI tier development, we failed. We need to work harder.. On 4/27/07, Bjorn Schultheiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So let me get this straight. You set an expectation of how long it would take to complete a project in software you are not familiar with and now your disappointed because your expectation was not met. Please, spare me... On 27/04/2007, at 2:05 PM, Lucas wrote: cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com Regards, Bjorn Schultheiss Senior Developer Personalised Communication Power Level 2, 31 Coventry St. South Melbourne 3205, VIC Australia T: +61 3 9674 7400 F: +61 3 9645 9160 W: http://www.qdc.net.au ((This transmission is confidential and intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender.---)) Regards, Bjorn Schultheiss Senior Developer Personalised Communication Power Level 2, 31 Coventry St. South Melbourne 3205, VIC Australia T: +61 3 9674 7400 F: +61 3 9645 9160 W: http://www.qdc.net.au ((This transmission is confidential and intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Hi Angus, What sort of application was it? A very basic calculation application. i.e. I fill out textbox one, textbox two and textbox three shows the calculated result, then insert into the database. I know about all the lists, I used them as well. What I found their is that most of the people on the list are learning as well so although sometimes the answers/suggestions worked, most of the time they didn't. I'm really interested in what sort of tutorials would cover the gap. Can you be more specific ie topics for learning. I'd be happy to write some myself. Well first and foremost how to lay out an application. I know of Cairngorm or ARF, but I found is that the complexity of them are so full on the time it would take would far out weigh what I had to deal with, that said I had some help with a mixature of the two from someone (whom I can't mention top secret stuff). And I think Angus you nailed it on the head when you said It's also significantly different to CF. So in terms of that perhaps a Guide to move your code from CF to Flex - Validation - Inserting Data into the database - Understanding MVC from a ColdFusion Perspective - What is OO? - Why write is ActionScript Compared to mx:Tags etc. I know heaps of CF'ers whom really want to use Flex but the learning curve is so huge that it scares them off. Hell I even know .NET programmers who would Like to use it but I tell them...No garry no! I'm not giving up on it but I'm definantly not going to recommend it again. Jeremy P.S. And for the jobs that are out their... .NET far out weighs any CF jobs. Unfortuantly. If I'm going to spend time learning another language its going to be that. On Apr 27, 1:53 pm, Angus Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Jeremy I'd agree that there is quite a learning curve for Flex. The framework is very comprehensive, lots of classes and it's easy to get lost. It's also object oriented and there are some concepts such as event handling that can do your head in at times. It's also significantly different to CF. Having said that I think Flex is like any new language. You've gotta spend the time learning it. Maybe Adobe PR did oversell it's simplicity. What sort of application was it? Certainly don't start a critical Flex project without going through some training first but a single pager app should be nailed easily. I'm really interested in what sort of tutorials would cover the gap. Can you be more specific ie topics for learning. I'd be happy to write some myself. There are pretty good support materials out there. Flexcoders mailing list namely. Also half a dozen books have been published now on Flex, a bunch of training videos from Lynda and Training from the Source and literally hundreds of custom components, example code, blogs and so on. By framework do you mean Cairngorm or ARF? Frameworks for big projects, Flex event handling for small. Jeremy, don't give up on Flex just yet. There's a touch of early adopter / bleeding edge with Flex but it's bedding down quite nicely. You've only got to look at the cf job ads asking about Flex experience to know where we're heading. Angus On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter.
[cfaussie] Re: SOT:Adobe Flex let me down
Word! Jeremy On Apr 27, 2:18 pm, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bah :) no such thing is a perfectly executed project in software, we are all humans. Flex is RAD initially but it hurts after you want to get deeper into mucking about with the code base. I blame mix-ins to be honest (decorater pattern) as it's quite confusing for the untrained folks. Secondly, what company is going to say let Jeremy sit on Flex for 6 months to get up to speed on it? I see this quite a lot in the years of doing FLEX, I actually used to get a lot of my work bailing out the Jeremy's so it's not isolated :) Personally if both Adobe or Micosoft can't get the Jeremy''s of this world up to speed in under 6 months with GUI tier development, we failed. We need to work harder.. On 4/27/07, Bjorn Schultheiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So let me get this straight. You set an expectation of how long it would take to complete a project in software you are not familiar with and now your disappointed because your expectation was not met. Please, spare me... On 27/04/2007, at 2:05 PM, Lucas wrote: cool - send one our way, I am sure that you don't need em anymore... Oh, I have an old Javascript book here that we don't use anymore, wanna swap? On 4/27/07, Scott Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I got some Flex 3 books i can hand out btw? On 4/27/07, grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i agree, learning actionscript was like that. adobe/mm just don't do good developer cultivation. On 27/04/07, cfgroupie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I walked into worked today with everyone around me saying did you hear? Flex has been open- sourced. My imediate thoughts was that's interesting. But honestly it won't make me continue with flex. I started a project about 2 months ago which was only going to take a few weeks. Without going into a massive post about the project we found a need to try out some Flex. I was Whoa stoked. We started off very small a simple form posting to a database. My background is mainly CF so I tackled Flex like a CF programmer would. It's sad to say that I totally under estimated the complexity of programming Flex. Now guys/gals, this page was the most BASIC page you could imagine. Where I felt Adobe let me down was the fact that all their PR explained how easy it was to pick up the Flex language. What they don't tell you is that you REALLY need to know OO and you REALLY need to have a good framework. The lack of examples in which I personally learn from is so limited that it left me shell shocked. When I learned ColdFusion it was SO much easier. Ben Forta is my friend! And of course this list bailed me out a number of times. Adobe are constantly pushing the fact that 9x% use flash player and video format is taking off. Then how come Adobe doesn't utlise this and create tutorials on how to use their products!? The company I work for is Huge and the amount of time that I wasted trying to achieve the most basic results I could have done 10 times quicker in ColdFusion AND .NET twice over. The sad fact of the matter is I will never recommend Flex to any programmer or company that I deal with again. So I hope that making Flex open-source will help bridge the massive learning curve that developers will encounter. Flex had so much potential and that I personally feel its fallin flat on its vector based face. Jeremy -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com Regards, Bjorn Schultheiss Senior Developer [image: QDC] Personalised Communication Power Level 2, 31 Coventry St. South Melbourne 3205, VIC Australia T: +61 3 9674 7400 F: +61 3 9645 9160 W: http://www.qdc.net.au ((This transmission is confidential and intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender.---)) -- Regards, Scott Barneshttp://www.mossyblog.com- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups cfaussie group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
