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Re: Hybridizing Java
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Posted: Feb 2, 2007 8:22 AM
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As one who's worked with Flex and OpenLaszlo off and on for a couple of years (as well as done some Ajax work here at the end of my 10 years of web app development), I'm really glad to see Bruce lay out this argument. Of course, like most such debates in our industry, there aren't entirely clear conclusions yet so we will all have to work to evolve our understanding to decide most effectively.
That said, I'd like to respond to a couple of early comments. I've only read about half of them so far, but these three reflected some concerns that it seems ought to be addressed.
To Dave Webb who wrote, "Will Flex Data Services be easily supported on Java based servers?" The answer is yes. FDS is a J2EE web app.
To Les Stroud who raised grave concerns from his "tainted" previous experience building Flash apps, while admitting that "Flex may have changed all this", I can report that indeed it has. Like so many technologies, Flex will have a bit of a hurdle overcoming old notions about the Flash IDE as well as the results it used to create (the sad "skip intro" era).
Anyway, Les, the old style of Flash development (movieclips, timelines, and indeed the whole graphics designer interface) is gone, for those using Flex. Flex is instead entirely XML-driven. Yet for those preferring a GUI, there is the optional FlexBuilder, which serves both soft- and hard-core coders, with both drag and drop simplicity as well as powerful code editing for MXML, ActionScript, and CSS. And since it's Eclipse-based, it can also of course be extended to support coding in whatever server-side language you may be using.
And to Mark Nuttall, who wrote, "I just don't get this. I have a Web Started Swing app. ... I think the real problem is that people are not familiar with Swing and with all the things possible with Java." This is kind of funny. Are you putting Bruce in that camp of folks "not familiar with all things possible with Java"? :-) We don't know each other, so I mean no offense if "of course you do", but it just surprises me if you're arguing that the blog entry's author is of that camp. Bruce is a legend to many in the Java world.
Just to inject some levity (again, no offense to Mark), but this sounded like that current Geico caveman commercials, where he's being interviewed by the talk show host who says, "Tone aside, historically, you guys have struggled to adapt”, to which he retorts, "Right, walking upright, discovering fire, inventing the wheel, creating the foundation of civilization—You’re right. Good point. Sorry we couldn’t get that to you sooner.”
Of course, the point there is that the caveman is smarter than the interviewer thinks, and it just made me think of how Bruce might reply.
Now, I certainly don't mean to classify Bruce as a caveman! :-) Far from it. And while he does I think represent a significant contingent in the Java camp, I'm also not referring to them or any of those outside the Flex camp currently as cavemen.
But taking the allegory in a different direction, it does seem that there's an evolution taking place regarding rich web apps.
In this article, Bruce has served as something of a paleontologist, evaluating the progression of events through time have changed the ecosystem of web app development. As with all such evaluations, there's certainly some guesswork as to how it has and will all work out, but he's certainly made a compelling case for Flex, against which a now-wider circle of theorists can debate. I applaud him for that.
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