name and shame
Here we go, Flex Builder has died.
The mistake has been made, we’ve done a step back in RIA wars, 1 point to Microsoft and Silverlight with their consistent tool naming and development concept. Adobe – well done, let’s scare off all the guys from Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP world who had/will have some interest in developing with Flex/ActionScript, with that new ‘ueber-kool’ Flash Builder nonsense.
Big caliber Flash guys like Serge Jespers, Lee Brimelow, Duane Nickull, Mark Doherty, Tim Buntel or Ryan Stewart sing odes to the coolness of new name, but they are all missing one important point – it’s not about developers with flash background anymore. There are too few of us, but millions of Java and .NET developers, and they actually matter. And those developers need to be converted and persuaded to use Flex not vice versa. They could be potentially interested in this new thingy called Flex but that ridiculous new name will just scare them off.
Guys, especially Adobe Evangelists, stop repeating the same old mantra about Flash Platform and Flex SDK and actually name the tools properly from the beginning.
The actual comments that I’ve heard today in the office:
What tool will I need to use if I want to create Flex/ActionScript application? Will it be Flash or Flash Professional, or Flash Catalyst or maybe Flash Builder and why is the word flash everywhere?
Flash is highly associated with animation and stupid banners so for most of new developers (read Java, C# and .NET in general) it sounds as the tool for annoying banners or skip intro productions. And do not tell me that they have no clue about what flash platform actually is and they have to attend ”what is flash” seminars (say hello to Tom Krcha) – this is Adobe’s responsibility to name its tools properly and market it reasonably.
The word Flash has really bad historical luggage of being stupid banner/skip intro production tool and just can not be seriously considered in financial/enterprise world. Adobe has to get rid of Flash Player’s name and change it to something more serious, e.g. Flash Runtime.
It’s not a big deal after all – it’s just a name. But on the other side it’s a huge waste of resources on marketing, rebranding, promoting etc. Those resources could be used to develop IDE that works like Visual Studio or IntelliJ IDEA.
But never mind, maybe in next life there will be some decent quality Flex/ActionScript IDE properly named.
Update: Very interesting post on this topic by Konstantin Kovalev
Hi Oleg,
Thanks for the post, it’s interesting to hear that you have such negative perceptions of Flash.
I actually came from the world of Visual Studio and C++ and before that I used to teach Java at university. They are just languages and tools, nothing more than that. My personal choice was VC6 because it did everything I needed with fantastic performance.
Flash Builder is for creating Web/AIR applications using Actionscript 3.0 and the open source Flex SDK.
In our experience Enterprise customers really enjoy using user experiences created with the Flash Platform.
Check out some of these examples:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.categories&marketplaceId=1&categoryid=3
Regards,
Mark
http://www.flashmobileblog.com
Mark,
I’m sorry to hear that you think I have a negative perceptions of Flash. I have a feeling that you’ve totally missed the point of this post.
The point of this post is the ridiculous renaming of a well branded and actually working tool.
This short-sighted move brought a lot of confusion into the already messy flash platform world.
What is the difference between Flash builder, Flash catalyst, Flash and Flash Player?
Can I open *.fla in all these tools, can I do timeline animation in Flash builder, or can I code MXML in Flash or Flash Player?
It’s a total mess. I know the answer to those questions, but I just want to demonstrate the confusion of non flash platform developer.
It’s not about coolness of name but about managers who sign off the $$$ for buying new tools, and with ridiculous “Flash” builder it will be much harder in the enterprise/financial environment.
You are right, these are just languages, so is Silverlight…
P.S.
I have been developing using this technology since Flash 5 and since Flex 1.5
I also think this renaming is wrong, and perhaps just a way for Adobe to eek a little more money out of the pockets of developers.
And will Adobe bundle everything into one package? And at some point in the future will it all merge into one ginormous application?
I disagree.
I use FB to create non-flex applications and I want it to be properly named.
Flex is just a library, one of many, nothing more.
Flash Platform tools are:
Flash Authoring + Flash Builder + Flash Catalyst
= Fa + Fb + Fc
= F(a + b + c)
Simple and strong.