Flex: The Unix Geek's Ideal Flash Environment

http://benjisimon.blogspot.com/2008/09/flex-unix-geeks-ideal-flash-environment.html

by soundsop • 18 years ago

25 20 18 years ago

benjisimon.blogspot.com

jwilliams• 18 years ago

The article is focused on developing Flex using Emacs, but probably also worth mentioning that the non-free Flex development environment (Flex Builder) is Eclipse-based.

I've never truly used it in anger, but I found it extremely good. It's US$250 or something last I checked.

If you're more of an IDE-type, worth checking out.

iron_ball3• 18 years ago

I'm an Actionscript developer by profession, and having recently moved into Flex work I can strongly recommend both the Flex framework and Flex Builder -- at least, if you choose to create content for the Flash Player at all. The programming model is worlds ahead of what Flash developers have been putting up with for the past decade; they made clear and effective efforts to make it work like the languages, frameworks, and systems professional developers are already familiar with.

Since Actionscript 3 has optional static typing, and contains little-documented but very real implementations of closures and functional programming, it can be written as a Java-like OO language, as a Javascript-like dynamic language, or as a clunky but at least workable functional language; and the XML-based GUI-layout component, MXML, is surprisingly powerful and consistent.

Even though Flash is where my paycheck comes from, I am not at all convinced that it is the ideal format for most web content, so I won't argue with anyone who hates it. But anyone who has avoided Flash because of its programming model should definitely give Flex a second look.

(As for Flex Builder, I use it for its debugger and compiler, while doing heavy-duty text editing in jEdit. I mean, it doesn't even have parenthesis balancing, for chrissake.)

snorkel• 18 years ago

Please tell me that all those crazy redundant type declarations I see in AS3 code is optional too? IMHO AS1 started as a broken but usable language then AS2 and AS3 came along and added layers of Java-style bureaucracy for no good reason. AS should've been more like Javacsript with simple duck-typing and first order functions, etc. Flash developers are web developers who know and understand Javascript. Why on earth AS3 has to become so different then Javascript is beyond me.

gb• 18 years ago

There's also FDT, an Eclipse plugin that makes Flex Builder look like a joke in terms of how it deals with Actionscript code.

I don't know what it does with MXML though, and haven't tried the debugger in it either (I don't have the so called enterprise version).

brfox• 18 years ago

There is also a free IDE: http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Feature... and in combination with the free Flex SDK (compiler et al) from Adobe then that's a decent combination, too.

keefe• 18 years ago

"For those who don't know, Flex allows you to write XML and JavaScript and compile it to a .swf instead of using the traditional GUI timeline based tools." uhm... you write ActionScript3, not javascript. Different beasts and likely to remain so given the current fragmentation in ecmascript recommendations.

abstractbill2• 18 years ago

There's also haxe (http://www.haxe.org), which we're using to good effect at justin.tv.

BlueZeniX• 18 years ago

justin.tv - nice :-)

-- Just another haXe fan over here

rtf2• 18 years ago

That's awesome. Do you guys post on the compiler list?

abstractbill2• 18 years ago

I haven't yet, but I plan on it. I already have a few small patches I'd love to get rolled back into haxe.

JulianMorrison• 18 years ago

How do flex and haxe compare to one another?

fuzzythinker• 18 years ago

Ha, is this guy a joke?

AS elegant? I think it's the ugliest language next to java.

AS has deep roots in Scheme!??

Also, I know you can use javascript for Flex, but can you create a swf using javascript?

apgwoz• 18 years ago

I believe the original author of JavaScript went to Netscape with the promise of doing "scheme" for the browser. It didn't happen, but he included some ideas from scheme as part of it.

See http://Weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/04/popu... for a brief history.

there• 18 years ago

flash, regardless of any development environment, is not ideal to any unix geek.

dgreensp• 18 years ago

Nice! I've been waiting for a write-up like this.

Because Flash has such good browser support, it's common for bits of rich functionality on sites to be implemented with little SWF files, with or without UI. Sound players, upload widgets, cross-domain sockets, even browser-proof clipboard access. I do all my web programming in Emacs, and the text-file-based development method he suggests is right on.

Flex: The Unix Geek's Ideal Flash Environment

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