January 31, 2007

Flex is the new Java?

Bruce Eckel wrote an interesting article on the shortcomings in Java, and how much he likes Flex as a platform for future app development.

I think he’s exactly right – Flex apps will run in browsers on all of the major operating systems, and there’s no reason they can’t run on the desktop using a runtime of some sort.   Other than 3d games and CAD rendering there are few applications that need direct access to the video card and the CPU.

If Flex does succeed here, it will represent the triumph of JavaScript over Java, Flash over HTML and Adobe over Sun.   Microsoft may have a response with Atlas, but unless Atlas is fully cross-platform, I’m not sure it’s going to win.

4 Comments »

  1. The one problem for developers is that ActionScript is not a standard. For the time being one company controls the FLEX platform. Going down that path will lead us to the same problems as Microsoft software: vendor lock-in.

    The web needs standards or it will not grow.

    Comment by veridicus — January 31, 2007 @ 6:02 pm

  2. But ActionScript 3 is ECMAScript compliant, which is a standard.

    And you’re absolutely right about vendor lock in. It should be interesting to see where Microsoft takes Atlas.

    Comment by jb — January 31, 2007 @ 6:08 pm

  3. Hello,

    Verdicus wrote that ActionScript is not a standard. Actually, it is! :) ActionScript is an implementation of the ECMAScript 262 Edition 4 spec. The VM that executes ActionScript is the open source Tamarin project, hosted by Mozilla.

    Adobe has fully committed to standardization through ECMA and has open sourced the VM.

    Regards,
    David

    Comment by David — January 31, 2007 @ 6:57 pm

  4. Funny, I just read the same article today. Like minds I guess.

    I agree with veridicus. vendor lock-in is bad. But ActionScript 3 is solely based on the upcoming Ecmascript 2.0. Adobe is the largest contributing particpant in the open standard. I forsee that the adobe parts will become simply extensions instead of lockins in the near future.

    I was inspired in a totally different way from Bruce’s article. You may enjoy it jb. Give it a read on my blog

    Comment by grendel — January 31, 2007 @ 11:05 pm

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