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Posted to dev@flex.apache.org by Ariel Jakobovits <ar...@yahoo.com> on 2012/04/05 09:04:10 UTC
flex breakdown
Martin had a nice idea tonight on the hangout that i'd like to get group thoughts on because I'd like to build it into the website structure. His idea was to think of the Flex project as three parts:
1. Compiler
2. Core
3. Components
Thoughts? Alternative breakdowns?
Ariel Jakobovits
Email: arieljake@yahoo.com
Phone: 650-690-2213
Fax: 650-641-0031
Cell: 650-823-8699
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 4/5/12 2:31 PM, "olegsivokon@gmail.com" <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alex,
>
> I will. Although, this thread started as general discussion of how many and
> of what kind bundles to make. So this one I'm very insistent about is
> really only one of the longer list. It just got concentrated on this one
> option. I'd really wanted to hear opinions (or rather reasoning for why it
> isn't possible / undesirable to) do other things - such as separate
> documentation download, Eclipse / Linux packaging, possibly pure binary
> package (which wouldn't include sources) etc. I don't know why this one
> option caught so much attention...
>
> Some of the questions, if being answered positively, will mean a lot of
> work - I'm not going to try to document all the undocumented Java code
> myself for example - I won't finish it until next millennium. But if there
> will be a consensus about that, then I could grab some part of it etc.
>
I would like the project to use JIRA as the place for polling for truly
actionable code tasks. (As in, not for "make the framework faster", but
something smaller like "documentation-only package") You can get a list of
the top voted issues and that can help folks decide what to work on. It
will certainly guide my decision.
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Alex,
I will. Although, this thread started as general discussion of how many and
of what kind bundles to make. So this one I'm very insistent about is
really only one of the longer list. It just got concentrated on this one
option. I'd really wanted to hear opinions (or rather reasoning for why it
isn't possible / undesirable to) do other things - such as separate
documentation download, Eclipse / Linux packaging, possibly pure binary
package (which wouldn't include sources) etc. I don't know why this one
option caught so much attention...
Some of the questions, if being answered positively, will mean a lot of
work - I'm not going to try to document all the undocumented Java code
myself for example - I won't finish it until next millennium. But if there
will be a consensus about that, then I could grab some part of it etc.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
Please keep the list mailing tips in mind when posting. In particular those about staying on topic, being constructive and being respectful. [1]
Thanks,
Justin
1. http://www.apache.org/dev/contrib-email-tips.html
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Ariel Jakobovits <ar...@yahoo.com>.
> My personal suggestion is to leave bashing/blaming at home.
that was the intent of my post, to point out that people's egos were leading them to act in ways that they have previously warned people not to do.
On Apr 6, 2012, at 1:45 AM, Martin Heidegger <mh...@leichtgewicht.at> wrote:
> On 06/04/2012 17:18, Ariel Jakobovits wrote:
>> ... just saying.
>
> Wow, just: Wow! How can a discussion get so out of hands?! Please everybody: Read the original mail: It was about the *website structure*. If you want to split it into a discussion about packaging, distribution, bashing, statistics, responsibilities or any of the other topics discussed: Please create a new thread.
>
> thanks
> Martin.
>
> PS.: My personal suggestion is to leave bashing/blaming at home.
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Martin Heidegger <mh...@leichtgewicht.at>.
On 06/04/2012 17:18, Ariel Jakobovits wrote:
> ... just saying.
Wow, just: Wow! How can a discussion get so out of hands?! Please
everybody: Read the original mail: It was about the *website structure*.
If you want to split it into a discussion about packaging, distribution,
bashing, statistics, responsibilities or any of the other topics
discussed: Please create a new thread.
thanks
Martin.
PS.: My personal suggestion is to leave bashing/blaming at home.
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Ariel Jakobovits <ar...@yahoo.com>.
> But don't ask the podling about its plans or intentions.
> There are none. We will do what we have the time and energy to do. Plans
> or intentions is just talk. Apache is about code.
Have we already forgotten:
Alex:
Yes, we agree on that point. The Spark code was much faster than the MXML descriptor tree, but I have a new proposed "descriptor" that is testing out to be just as fast as the Spark code so I think we'll go with something like that when we finish up MXML in Falcon.
More on that when we get closer to contributing Falcon.
Arno:
Dear Alex,
The first rule of Apache is that if it doesn't happen here, it doesn't happen. Therefore either you are working on ideas that could help us better compile MXML code, which you are about to share with us imminently, or what you are working on is of no interest to the Apache Flex project. It's time you and Adobe decided which it is. So cut the teasing act and either put up or shut up.
Seems like roles have switched. I'm not taking sides, just saying.
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 4/5/12 1:45 PM, "olegsivokon@gmail.com" <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm asking a simple question that requires exactly one of the two answers
> "yes" or "no". If anyone here needs it, I'll do it, if not - then I'm
> sorry, but it takes time and effort at times spent on things I will never
> get to even see. I didn't "feel" anything, I know for a fact that it is
> needed because I do need it, the question is not about me though.
Oleg, you should open a JIRA bug for a compiler-only distribution. You can
then see by votes how many folks want it, and then you or someone else will
take the time to make it happen.
You can be a release manager of any kind of distribution/package. I
certainly wouldn't veto the release of a tools-only package if you took the
time to create it. But don't ask the podling about its plans or intentions.
There are none. We will do what we have the time and energy to do. Plans
or intentions is just talk. Apache is about code.
--
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Dough,
There is a great deal of a difference between those who need framework and
those who need the SDK (those who need framework still need the SDK, but
those who need the SDK, don't necessarily need framework).
This is why, for example, code editors for AS have "pure AS" projects. The
number of uses of this kind of project may vary as per editor, but in some
it is the kind that prevails and is paid most attention to (this kind would
correspond to "bare SDK" use case).
Having these two separate has other benefits, such as for example, we would
have a "guard" that prevents unwanted dependencies (historical examples of
such things being neglected are BitmapAsset and similar classes, which are
used in "pure AS3" projects making them dependent on framework, while there
is no such requirement.)
Any reasonable theory on software design would involve such thing as area
of application domain, regardless of whether you are building it for
yourself, your family or /dev/null - this is part of how you decide what
the program does and in what way. This doesn't contradict the "where it
happens" principle, because it speaks about a different thing. Imagine, you
are writing a compiler, but you are not manufacturing the processors. No
matter how hard you try to keep all discussions about what instructions to
implement - unless and until you research the area of application, all such
discussions are meaningless. The idea is to make decisions here (and not on
the side), but you can't limit the research to only this board.
Jeffry.
I'm asking a simple question that requires exactly one of the two answers
"yes" or "no". If anyone here needs it, I'll do it, if not - then I'm
sorry, but it takes time and effort at times spent on things I will never
get to even see. I didn't "feel" anything, I know for a fact that it is
needed because I do need it, the question is not about me though.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Doug Arthur <do...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Omar, you are confusing the target users with the developers. You can't
> poll the developers about what do they think the users of their software
> think. I mean, ok, you can, but what's the point if you can ask the users
> firsthand?
There are two audiences to the efforts here in the Apache Flex community.
Audience #1: Developers interesting in enhancing the component
architecture of the Apache Flex SDK
Audience #2: Developers interesting in using the Flash Platform as
their delivery platform, and using the Apache Flex SDK to build their
applications.
For Audience #1, everything must happen on this specific list, or it
"didn't happen". Conversations can go on outside this list if you
want, whatever. And those conversations could potentially be brought
back over to here, but then it would all need to be vetted out and
repeated on this list so there's history in the apache mailing list
archives.
For Audience #2, there's a flex-users list, which obviously is not an
active list - yet. The goal of this list is to have a community of
developers that are using the SDK for their applications, where they
can get help by asking questions, bring examples of their work, and to
propose potential new ideas to the community (users of the sdk). Any
such proposals would then have to have their argument made on this
list, and then one can lobby for a committer to agree and take on
their idea, whether it's already developed code, or new code to be
developed. But don't expect anyone to take anything on without it
happening here first, because the chances of a veto are probably
higher, but not a guaranteed veto.
I for one, plan on paying attention to what the "users" of the SDK
want, by watching the flex-users mailing list. If something
particularly sparks my interest, I will bring it back here, or just do
it myself and commit it - but it will still be brought here regardless
at some point.
I am also interested in the bigger picture audience for the use of
Apache Flex SDK, so I want features that can be shared, and have a
common interest by the "users" of the SDK. So don't expect me to
accept code that's stripped everything away that makes the framework
less usable by a larger audience. The goal here is to make the
framework as a whole better. If a feature fits my specific needs, and
is worth sharing, then I will develop it myself, and will eventually
commit it and it will potentially make it's way into a release, so
long it's not veto'd.
Have all the polls you want, and anywhere you want them. Convince
yourself of whatever you need to convince yourself of. But once you've
convinced yourself of something, you'll have to do that over with this
mailing list. So good luck!
But as others have said, don't let it stop you from doing great work,
and just do it. If you lobby for a committer that appreciates your
work, and thinks it's an improvement to the framework, good chances
it'll make its way in.
- Doug
RE: flex breakdown
Posted by "Guthmann, Scott" <sg...@on3solutions.com>.
> The guy raised concerns/question, trying to even back it up and then have to fight to defend his rights to rise a question?
Oleg & Daniel: If you have found a bug or defect, please enter the bug in the bug base.
If you have a better idea for what should be included in the SDK or removed from the SDK, please provide an example of what you are referring to specifically on the SVN whiteboard so we can look at your code and consider the changes you are proposing. Apache Flex is what the people involved in this project determine it to be; a meritocracy if you will. The other Flex developers that Oleg knows are welcome to join this mailing list and they are also welcome to contribute their code to the whiteboard. It the code and changes you suggest are the best - the changes will be implemented into the trunk.
Please do not let anyone stifle your ideas or creativity - please post the code, changes, documentation, and application examples you wish us to consider & we will.
Regards,
Scott Guthmann
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Wasilewski [mailto:devudesign@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 1:19 PM
To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: flex breakdown
Hi List.
Just reading all this and I think I missed something here.
You putting on vote many things here every single day and suddenly looking for argument against voting? Even for some rhetorical questions.
The guy raised concerns/question, trying to even back it up and then have to fight to defend his rights to rise a question?
I am watching this list from a while, I am not active contributor. Just looking what community is up to.
But those kind of topics making me think about the whole future of Flex in community hands.
There is way to many those kind of bull crap going on. Seriously...
On 4/5/2012 7:41 PM, Left Right wrote:
> Omar, you are confusing the target users with the developers. You
> can't poll the developers about what do they think the users of their
> software think. I mean, ok, you can, but what's the point if you can
> ask the users firsthand?
>
> I just offered to run more polls. I know the leader of UFUG / RFUG and
> can ask them to host the poll on their site (they, by coincidence, are
> working on yet another AS3 editor, so they may be interested to know that as well).
> Facebook Flash usergroup and so on...
> There's nothing special required to post the poll on as.org /
> kirupa.comand similar - why, if that's such a debatable issue - why
> not do it?
>
> By the way. Some more statistics - as I've been for a few years
> moderating another resource dedicated to AS / Flash / Flex, I can tell
> that the number of overall questions asked that concern Flex is,
> possibly, 1/10 of all questions, but the number of questions that
> imply that the poster is using Flex compiler is, at least, double of that.
> If my own experience is not enough - I can ask as.org moderators about
> that, or kirupians :) You can check that on stackoverflow too.
>
> Best.
>
> Oleg
>
-----
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Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Daniel Wasilewski <de...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi List.
>
> Just reading all this and I think I missed something here.
>
> You putting on vote many things here every single day and suddenly looking
> for argument against voting? Even for some rhetorical questions.
> The guy raised concerns/question, trying to even back it up and then have
> to fight to defend his rights to rise a question?
>
> I am watching this list from a while, I am not active contributor. Just
> looking what community is up to.
> But those kind of topics making me think about the whole future of Flex in
> community hands.
> There is way to many those kind of bull crap going on. Seriously...
>
>
I'm not saying don't ask questions, or not to use other communities for
information.
What I am saying is to please ask those questions on this mailing list, so
that we can have it archived, and searchable, in our mailing list archive.
-omar@apache.org
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Daniel Wasilewski <de...@gmail.com>.
Hi List.
Just reading all this and I think I missed something here.
You putting on vote many things here every single day and suddenly
looking for argument against voting? Even for some rhetorical questions.
The guy raised concerns/question, trying to even back it up and then
have to fight to defend his rights to rise a question?
I am watching this list from a while, I am not active contributor. Just
looking what community is up to.
But those kind of topics making me think about the whole future of Flex
in community hands.
There is way to many those kind of bull crap going on. Seriously...
On 4/5/2012 7:41 PM, Left Right wrote:
> Omar, you are confusing the target users with the developers. You can't
> poll the developers about what do they think the users of their software
> think. I mean, ok, you can, but what's the point if you can ask the users
> firsthand?
>
> I just offered to run more polls. I know the leader of UFUG / RFUG and can
> ask them to host the poll on their site (they, by coincidence, are working
> on yet another AS3 editor, so they may be interested to know that as well).
> Facebook Flash usergroup and so on...
> There's nothing special required to post the poll on as.org /
> kirupa.comand similar - why, if that's such a debatable issue - why
> not do it?
>
> By the way. Some more statistics - as I've been for a few years moderating
> another resource dedicated to AS / Flash / Flex, I can tell that the number
> of overall questions asked that concern Flex is, possibly, 1/10 of all
> questions, but the number of questions that imply that the poster is using
> Flex compiler is, at least, double of that.
> If my own experience is not enough - I can ask as.org moderators about
> that, or kirupians :) You can check that on stackoverflow too.
>
> Best.
>
> Oleg
>
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Jeffry Houser <je...@dot-com-it.com>.
On 4/5/2012 4:08 PM, Left Right wrote:
>
> I can't guarantee such a thing will make it into a future release.
>
> Why would I ask it otherwise?.. why would I "donate" it, if it is not
> needed?
If you felt it wasn't needed; why would you put any time into it? You
obviously needed it. And presumably, you feel so will others and wanted
to share.
There is no guarantee anything donated to Apache will end up in a
formal release. That includes things from PPMC members.
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
203-379-0773
--
http://www.flextras.com?c=104
UI Flex Components: Tested! Supported! Ready!
--
http://www.theflexshow.com
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
http://www.asktheflexpert.com
--
Part of the DotComIt Brain Trust
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Besides, we skipped few other important things:
- Eclipse-compatible install.
- RPM / DEB package(s).
I'm not convinced abut OS-particular bundles. It is only the matter of our
build scripts and intention, what they package. It's not going to divide
project between teams or anything like that. Today we could identify
content that is OS-specific and create a roll-out script that generates
several downloads for different OS-s. This is extra work, but, again, users
might appreciate it, as it will significantly reduce the size of the
download and the project's complexity (for them).
This doesn't mean that whoever downloads the sources and builds on their
own will get only stuff pertaining to their platform. But people who don't
build it on their own will.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
> I can't guarantee such a thing will make it into a future release.
>
> Why would I ask it otherwise?.. why would I "donate" it, if it is not
needed?
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Jeffry Houser <je...@dot-com-it.com>.
On 4/5/2012 3:37 PM, Left Right wrote:
>
> Well, then, if we do it for ourselves, then I have no interest in
> UIComponent and related stuff. So, if I'm doing it for myself, I will
> be more explicit - I want that there will be a separate small download
> of only the compiler and basic utilities needed to compile AS3. I will
> be happy to make a build that creates only the minimal bundle. One
> thing, that interests me then, is whether it will be made official
> under the guise of this project or not.
Good; please go ahead and create it! You can donate it to the project
via JIRA. [Or given the Apache license; distribute it in any other
manner that you please].
I can't guarantee such a thing will make it into a future release.
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
203-379-0773
--
http://www.flextras.com?c=104
UI Flex Components: Tested! Supported! Ready!
--
http://www.theflexshow.com
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
http://www.asktheflexpert.com
--
Part of the DotComIt Brain Trust
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Jeffry.
Well, then, if we do it for ourselves, then I have no interest in
UIComponent and related stuff. So, if I'm doing it for myself, I will be
more explicit - I want that there will be a separate small download of only
the compiler and basic utilities needed to compile AS3. I will be happy to
make a build that creates only the minimal bundle. One thing, that
interests me then, is whether it will be made official under the guise of
this project or not.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Jeffry Houser <je...@dot-com-it.com>.
On 4/5/2012 3:14 PM, Left Right wrote:
> The intent is not to ask about Adobe Flex. The intent is to ask about what
> features the users of AS3 / Flash may possibly need / expect from this
> project. It's good to have our own idea about that, but we after all, don't
> do it exclusively for ourselves.
As I understood it; the Apache way is to do it exactly for ourselves.
Then release / contribute it and possibly iterate.
> I'm sorry, but if you don't care about whether anyone needs the program
> that you write - why are you doing it?
Because I need it.
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
203-379-0773
--
http://www.flextras.com?c=104
UI Flex Components: Tested! Supported! Ready!
--
http://www.theflexshow.com
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
http://www.asktheflexpert.com
--
Part of the DotComIt Brain Trust
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Omar,
The intent is not to ask about Adobe Flex. The intent is to ask about what
features the users of AS3 / Flash may possibly need / expect from this
project. It's good to have our own idea about that, but we after all, don't
do it exclusively for ourselves. Besides, I don't see Flex suddenly being
entirely rewritten in a matter of month or two... it will be basically the
same product for quite some time (at least according to the roadmap /
future releases that had been discussed already).
Again, the intent is to ask, based on what already has been seen, what the
audience expects. It is no rocket science for someone who used the SDK and
/ or framework for few years to imagine or remember what they needed or
used, or had and never used.
Imagine that Adobe does it! Maybe not enough of market research, maybe it
fails to analyze the statistic (and maybe this is why the project is in the
state it is), but, hey, they were at least sane enough to ask about that...
You misunderstand the motto "If id didn't happen...". The intent is not to
ask ourselves what do we want to do, the intent is to research whether that
what we do is needed - what if the thing we wanted to do so very much in
actuality is not needed - how do you deduce it based on asking yourself?
You are not working for /dev/null alone, there's someone on the other end
of the pipe...
I'm sorry, but if you don't care about whether anyone needs the program
that you write - why are you doing it? Doesn't it look to you like a wasted
effort?
Beside other things, are you aware of this site
http://www.dearadobe.com/gripes/flex/ for example? There are few more,
organized by Adobe to gather public opinion on how their products are
accepted.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Omar, you are confusing the target users with the developers. You can't
> poll the developers about what do they think the users of their software
> think. I mean, ok, you can, but what's the point if you can ask the users
> firsthand?
>
Well first off, any polls that have been already done on other sites are
based on Adobe Flex. We now have the ability to change things sans Adobe,
so opinions on the Adobe SDK and how it was run in the past are no longer
valid.
Second, we do not yet have any Apache Flex releases, so polling users of
our SDK, and how we decide to deploy our SDK, are solely based on precedent
set by Adobe. I will go out on a limb here and say we will most likely be
changing or adding to many of the aspects of the project that we couldn't
in the passed. Some people have suggested adding Gradle support, Maven,
etc, these are all things that are possible now being discussed on this
list.
Which leads me to the third thing which is that I am not confusing end
users with SDK developers. However, we do have a flex-users mailing list
that is not yet very busy because we have not released any SDK versions for
that mailing list to comment on.
>
> I just offered to run more polls. I know the leader of UFUG / RFUG and can
> ask them to host the poll on their site (they, by coincidence, are working
> on yet another AS3 editor, so they may be interested to know that as well).
> Facebook Flash usergroup and so on...
> There's nothing special required to post the poll on as.org /
> kirupa.comand similar - why, if that's such a debatable issue - why
> not do it?
>
>
You can run as many polls as you want on other sites. However, I go back to
this Apache saying:
"If it didn't happen on the list, it didn't happen."
This includes, Kirupa, Facebook, Twitter, as.org, etc, etc, etc. So when it
comes time to making decisions the polls done on other sites should not and
will not have any bearing on decisions made by this community in this
mailing list.
> By the way. Some more statistics - as I've been for a few years moderating
> another resource dedicated to AS / Flash / Flex, I can tell that the number
> of overall questions asked that concern Flex is, possibly, 1/10 of all
> questions, but the number of questions that imply that the poster is using
> Flex compiler is, at least, double of that.
> If my own experience is not enough - I can ask as.org moderators about
> that, or kirupians :) You can check that on stackoverflow too.
>
> Best.
>
> Oleg
>
I am not really interested in looking to try and build consensus by
browsing and searching Kirupa, as.org or StackOverflow. Our community is
here, not there. And that's the last I'll say on this thread.
-omar@apache.org
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
Omar, you are confusing the target users with the developers. You can't
poll the developers about what do they think the users of their software
think. I mean, ok, you can, but what's the point if you can ask the users
firsthand?
I just offered to run more polls. I know the leader of UFUG / RFUG and can
ask them to host the poll on their site (they, by coincidence, are working
on yet another AS3 editor, so they may be interested to know that as well).
Facebook Flash usergroup and so on...
There's nothing special required to post the poll on as.org /
kirupa.comand similar - why, if that's such a debatable issue - why
not do it?
By the way. Some more statistics - as I've been for a few years moderating
another resource dedicated to AS / Flash / Flex, I can tell that the number
of overall questions asked that concern Flex is, possibly, 1/10 of all
questions, but the number of questions that imply that the poster is using
Flex compiler is, at least, double of that.
If my own experience is not enough - I can ask as.org moderators about
that, or kirupians :) You can check that on stackoverflow too.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Roland Zwaga <ro...@stackandheap.com>wrote:
> >
> > Again, I didn't say that either sources or other parts of the SDK are
> > useless, what I say is that people don't use them quite often. Some -
> never
> > use them. This is a common sense, that if a feature is not mandatory -
> make
> > it explicitly optional... It doesn't matter how good uses you can find
> for
> > the things in the SDK. The goal _is not_ to provide users with as much
> > stuff as you can. The purpose is to give them what they really need and
> be
> > flexible about giving per request.
>
>
> While I agree with your point about making a seldom-used feature optional,
> it might
> also be true that basing the assumption that these features are seldom used
> on a poll
> that was conducted among FlashDevelop users might skew this assumption
> towards
> only a certain part of the flash/flex developer community.
> What I mean is, it might be true that these features are seldom used
> amongst FlashDevelop
> users, it might not be representative for users of FDT, IDEA, FlashBuilder,
> etc.
> I don't claim to know the preferences of these user groups, but they might
> be vastly different from
> the preferences of the FlashDevelop community.
> Having said that, I do feel you have a point about making certain parts of
> the SDK optional,
> I don't think flexibility is a bad thing, so I think you raise a valid
> point that warrants a healthy
> discussion :)
>
> cheers,
>
> Roland
>
+1 to this summary.
-omar
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Roland Zwaga <ro...@stackandheap.com>.
>
> Again, I didn't say that either sources or other parts of the SDK are
> useless, what I say is that people don't use them quite often. Some - never
> use them. This is a common sense, that if a feature is not mandatory - make
> it explicitly optional... It doesn't matter how good uses you can find for
> the things in the SDK. The goal _is not_ to provide users with as much
> stuff as you can. The purpose is to give them what they really need and be
> flexible about giving per request.
While I agree with your point about making a seldom-used feature optional,
it might
also be true that basing the assumption that these features are seldom used
on a poll
that was conducted among FlashDevelop users might skew this assumption
towards
only a certain part of the flash/flex developer community.
What I mean is, it might be true that these features are seldom used
amongst FlashDevelop
users, it might not be representative for users of FDT, IDEA, FlashBuilder,
etc.
I don't claim to know the preferences of these user groups, but they might
be vastly different from
the preferences of the FlashDevelop community.
Having said that, I do feel you have a point about making certain parts of
the SDK optional,
I don't think flexibility is a bad thing, so I think you raise a valid
point that warrants a healthy
discussion :)
cheers,
Roland
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And does anyone know what percentage of developers use FlashDevelop? I,
> for
> > one, have never even seen their home page, let alone used or downloaded
> it.
> > Nor do I believe that any polls on any such boards that you didn't
> mention
> > really matter either. All of these boards will have only a percentage of
> > Flex and AS3 users, a percentage that is impossible for anyone to
> > determine. I imagine this is why the Apache saying exists: "If it didn't
> > happen in the mailing list, it didn't happen.".
> >
> > -omar
> >
>
> I'm sorry, but there isn't a better way - you would need to select a group
> of users and poll them. If you have a better idea of how to poll all users
- I'm all ears.
Yes there is a better way, for this project really the only way, and that
is to ask questions on the mailing list and see how this community feels
about a certain question or issue.
> If you never heard of a single oldest open-source editor
> for AS3, I am rather surprised about why are you putting this forward as an
> advantage, or something you would want to show off... and how this makes
> the poll less credible.
>
Again, you're putting words in my mouth. I did not say I have never heard
of FlashDevelop, I _did_ say that I have never downloaded it or visited
their homepage because I do not care for this editor because a.) I'm on Mac
and b.) I use IntelliJ.
>
> Again, I didn't say that either sources or other parts of the SDK are
> useless, what I say is that people don't use them quite often. Some - never
> use them. This is a common sense, that if a feature is not mandatory - make
> it explicitly optional... It doesn't matter how good uses you can find for
> the things in the SDK. The goal _is not_ to provide users with as much
> stuff as you can. The purpose is to give them what they really need and be
> flexible about giving per request.
>
> Best.
>
> Oleg
>
I understand your point, and I agree with some of it and I agree with the
points Doug McCune made. All I am saying is let's not use assumptions and
conjecture, instead let's use this mailing list for what it is intended
for, and that is to communicate with the community and formulate consensus
about issues regarding this project. Polls are inaccurate, incomplete,
unsecure (there are ways to vote multiple times on any poll), and again,
polling should be done on the mailing list because "if it doesn't happen on
the mailing list, it didn't happen.".
-omar
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
>
> And does anyone know what percentage of developers use FlashDevelop? I, for
> one, have never even seen their home page, let alone used or downloaded it.
> Nor do I believe that any polls on any such boards that you didn't mention
> really matter either. All of these boards will have only a percentage of
> Flex and AS3 users, a percentage that is impossible for anyone to
> determine. I imagine this is why the Apache saying exists: "If it didn't
> happen in the mailing list, it didn't happen.".
>
> -omar
>
I'm sorry, but there isn't a better way - you would need to select a group
of users and poll them. If you have a better idea of how to poll all users
- I'm all ears. If you never heard of a single oldest open-source editor
for AS3, I am rather surprised about why are you putting this forward as an
advantage, or something you would want to show off... and how this makes
the poll less credible.
Again, I didn't say that either sources or other parts of the SDK are
useless, what I say is that people don't use them quite often. Some - never
use them. This is a common sense, that if a feature is not mandatory - make
it explicitly optional... It doesn't matter how good uses you can find for
the things in the SDK. The goal _is not_ to provide users with as much
stuff as you can. The purpose is to give them what they really need and be
flexible about giving per request.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Left Right <ol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > This is all conjecture, unless you have personally polled every single
> Flex
> > and AS3 developer in the world these statements shouldn't be used to try
> > and justify decisions. Unless you can back them up with hard data it just
> > makes it sound like you are trying really hard to convince someone of
> > something that may or may not be true.
>
>
> These aren't exactly assumptions. I didn't poll personally, but
> FlashDevelop developers had organized a poll, which was active for more
> then two years now on inclusion of Flex SDK with the FlashDevelop. You can
> see the results here:
> http://flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4560
> As you can see, about the half of the voters would rather not include the
> SDK with their favorite editor. If you read the responses, you will see
> that the major problem was the size of the download.
>
> I can actually post polls to few popular user boards / user groups - should
> I, if that is really of an interest, I'll do! But being an active user of
> many such boards, I can quite predict the results. There will be a lot of
> users who don't need that stuff from SDK. A lot means at leas hundreds of
> votes (as per forum traffic, that would be a very significant number).
>
> On the same note, if we are going to run few polls - do you have any wishes
> about the wording of the question?
>
> Best.
>
> Oleg
>
And does anyone know what percentage of developers use FlashDevelop? I, for
one, have never even seen their home page, let alone used or downloaded it.
Nor do I believe that any polls on any such boards that you didn't mention
really matter either. All of these boards will have only a percentage of
Flex and AS3 users, a percentage that is impossible for anyone to
determine. I imagine this is why the Apache saying exists: "If it didn't
happen in the mailing list, it didn't happen.".
-omar
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
>
> This is all conjecture, unless you have personally polled every single Flex
> and AS3 developer in the world these statements shouldn't be used to try
> and justify decisions. Unless you can back them up with hard data it just
> makes it sound like you are trying really hard to convince someone of
> something that may or may not be true.
These aren't exactly assumptions. I didn't poll personally, but
FlashDevelop developers had organized a poll, which was active for more
then two years now on inclusion of Flex SDK with the FlashDevelop. You can
see the results here:
http://flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4560
As you can see, about the half of the voters would rather not include the
SDK with their favorite editor. If you read the responses, you will see
that the major problem was the size of the download.
I can actually post polls to few popular user boards / user groups - should
I, if that is really of an interest, I'll do! But being an active user of
many such boards, I can quite predict the results. There will be a lot of
users who don't need that stuff from SDK. A lot means at leas hundreds of
votes (as per forum traffic, that would be a very significant number).
On the same note, if we are going to run few polls - do you have any wishes
about the wording of the question?
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Roland Zwaga <ro...@stackandheap.com>.
>
> Let's stick to providing better reasoning based on cold hard facts rather
> than assumptions and conjecture, it'll make decision making easier for
> everyone.
>
> Just my opinion.
>
+1!
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Omar Gonzalez <om...@gmail.com>.
>
> - A lot of people don't need UIComponent and other framework stuff. IE. a
> great number of SDK users are not at all interested...
>
> - Most of Flex users don't need the sources, neither Java nor AS...
>
> ...and a lot of users wouldn't even know the difference.
>
> So, looking at it from end user perspective, the vast majority of users
> need:
>
This is all conjecture, unless you have personally polled every single Flex
and AS3 developer in the world these statements shouldn't be used to try
and justify decisions. Unless you can back them up with hard data it just
makes it sound like you are trying really hard to convince someone of
something that may or may not be true.
Let's stick to providing better reasoning based on cold hard facts rather
than assumptions and conjecture, it'll make decision making easier for
everyone.
Just my opinion.
-omar
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Doug McCune <do...@dougmccune.com>.
>
> - Most of Flex users don't need the sources, neither Java nor AS.
I know others have raised an objection to this line, and I wanted to offer
two points that contradict each other.
1) Having the Flex source code available when you are writing code so you
can ctrl-click on any Flex class and dive into the source, or you can step
into the source when debugging is INCREDIBLY important for people learning.
IMO you cannot learn Flex without this. I think it would be a big step
backward if the default thing people used when learning was a version that
did not include source.
2) When dealing with continuous integration server setup and trying to
easily move from using one version of the SDK to using another (say
upgrading from 4.5 to 4.6) there is no clean, small, neatly packaged up
download that gives you only the bits you needs to do this. Those bits
would be all the swcs and all the compiler binaries needed (mxmlc, compc,
etc). Instead you have to go download the full SDK (over a hundred megs)
and then also download the data visualization package separately, then
combine all the swcs that you need from both those downloads together
(sorry if this is different for Flex 4, I'm still using Flex 3, where this
is definitely the case). So from that perspective having a minimal package
that only included the swcs and binaries would be incredibly useful.
So those are two arguments for both cases, at least when it comes to the AS
sources. I agree that most "end users" do not need/want the compiler
sources or even stuff like the Mustella tests, etc. I'd argue we could have
3 distribution packages: default "end user" package that includes only
binaries plus all sources of AS/MXML classes, the full package that
includes sources of everything, and the binary-only package that is the
smallest version that only has swcs and binaries needed to compile Flex
apps on the command line.
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
> The current volume of the documentation is mostly given due to
unoptimized html output.
Documentation is known to be the major volume of just any software. Well,
good documentation :) Read on on what is minimal install, so you'll see why
/ how the actual size can be reduced below that of documentation.
What would be minimal? ;) I think it having a separate download for each
> section
> would be a good idea: Being able to compile stuff, being able to build
> MXML apps and being
> able to use UI components gives an easy understanding of how it works.
- A lot of people don't need UIComponent and other framework stuff. IE. a
great number of SDK users are not at all interested in having the framework
bundled with the SDK. So, technically, the whole frameworks folder can be
removed from the minimal download.
- Most of Flex users don't need the sources, neither Java nor AS. Now, I
know that under Apache license you have to distribute sources instead of
binaries, but no one says there may not be a binary download that comes w/o
sources if anyone wants to provide one. Cutting this down, you'll be
basically left with bin and lib folders of the existing SDK + ant tasks +
xslt required for asdocs + couple of config files and that's about it. This
would be less then 5% of the entire SDK as it is today, and a lot of users
wouldn't even know the difference.
So, looking at it from end user perspective, the vast majority of users
need:
- Group 1: the very minimal download including bin, lib, ant tasks and
configuration files needed to operate them.
- Group 2: the minimal + SWCs with frameworks and locales.
- Group 3 (users who want to commit their code to SDK or patch it for their
own purposes) would need the sources and the testing suite.
- regardless of the category any group might or might not want the
documentation (I'm not certain here, which would be best, a single package
or multiple). By the way, the Java part of the code is only rudimentary
documented and no official documentation of Adobe / Macromedia packages
existed before - so that's another huge undertaking for this working
group...
===
Regarding installation options:
- It would be cool if Flex SDK was install-able via Eclipse site mechanism
(i.e. downloaded by Eclipse).
- It would be cool if Flex SDK was install-able via package managers (RPM /
DEB or both).
- Not sure how other editors handle their plugins / installations, but I
guess their users might provide more feedback on that. I certainly will try
to come up with some flex-mode.el for Emacs, when we will figure out the
stuff about what and how gets downloaded etc.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Martin Heidegger <mh...@leichtgewicht.at>.
Core: Everything necessary to run with MXML/AS3/CSS, everything
necessary to plug things together, nothing more.
On 05/04/2012 19:57, Left Right wrote:
> What is core and what is components?
>
> There are, as of today, several developers groups involved. One working on
> AIR SDK, another one works on the Flex SDK. These are quite distinct
> projects, they both use the compiler and related things, but other than
> that very few things in common. Compiler is a separate group too, as far as
> I could understand.
>
> There is a big project, which wasn't yet part of the SDK, but seems like it
> will be - the testing suite (Mustella). I'm not sure it has to be included
> with the compiler / framework by default.
I think "toolchain" might be a better section name than "compiler"?
> Documentation. If documentation will be distributed with the projects, will
> it be distributed as a single bundle for everything, or will each project
> have it's own documentation? (Very often documentation takes few times the
> size of what it documents).
The current volume of the documentation is mostly given due to
unoptimized html output.
> Locales. If we are going for less size / more download options, possibly
> bundling with only one locale + having additional downloads with other
> locales can be a good thing.
>
> Do we want a minimal download? It is possible to strip a lot of things from
> SDK and still have it workable. For example, all AS sources - you don't
> need them to build projects that use Flex framework. Apache projects must
> be distributed as sources only, but no one says you can't provide binary
> package for users who can't care less about the precise wording of the
> license / don't want to build themselves (not under Apache license of
> course).
What would be minimal? ;) I think it having a separate download for each
section
would be a good idea: Being able to compile stuff, being able to build
MXML apps and being
able to use UI components gives an easy understanding of how it works.
of course beside a complete sdk download.
> Do we want to provide downloads per OS? The SDK today contains a lot of
> code / binaries that work exclusively on one OS but not the other. Users of
> any OS have to download both, which looks like a waste.
No, if we have that then it will make working in mixed teams difficult.
> Do we want to have an "installer"? Could be nice, especially to help
> resolve some basic problems the beginners might have: check for the proper
> Java, set some environmental variables, check for a bunch of other programs
> we may need to run other things like archivers, flash player.
Command line tools would be nice :)
yours
Martin.
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Left Right <ol...@gmail.com>.
What is core and what is components?
There are, as of today, several developers groups involved. One working on
AIR SDK, another one works on the Flex SDK. These are quite distinct
projects, they both use the compiler and related things, but other than
that very few things in common. Compiler is a separate group too, as far as
I could understand.
There is a big project, which wasn't yet part of the SDK, but seems like it
will be - the testing suite (Mustella). I'm not sure it has to be included
with the compiler / framework by default.
Documentation. If documentation will be distributed with the projects, will
it be distributed as a single bundle for everything, or will each project
have it's own documentation? (Very often documentation takes few times the
size of what it documents).
Locales. If we are going for less size / more download options, possibly
bundling with only one locale + having additional downloads with other
locales can be a good thing.
Do we want a minimal download? It is possible to strip a lot of things from
SDK and still have it workable. For example, all AS sources - you don't
need them to build projects that use Flex framework. Apache projects must
be distributed as sources only, but no one says you can't provide binary
package for users who can't care less about the precise wording of the
license / don't want to build themselves (not under Apache license of
course).
Do we want to provide downloads per OS? The SDK today contains a lot of
code / binaries that work exclusively on one OS but not the other. Users of
any OS have to download both, which looks like a waste.
Do we want to have an "installer"? Could be nice, especially to help
resolve some basic problems the beginners might have: check for the proper
Java, set some environmental variables, check for a bunch of other programs
we may need to run other things like archivers, flash player.
This is what I could think of off top of my head. Could be more.
Best.
Oleg
Re: flex breakdown
Posted by Clint Modien <cm...@gmail.com>.
>
> 1. Compiler
> 2. Core
> 3. Components
I like those as a high level. There are some projects that wouldn't exactly fit into those 3 groups though.
Here's the dir dump from /frameworks/projects… some of the projects aren't well documented.
Maybe someone from Adobe can explain them?
advancedgrids
airframework
airspark
authoringsupport
automation
automation_air
automation_airspark
automation_dmv
automation_flashflexkit
automation_spark
charts
core
flash-integration
framework
halo
mobilecomponents
mobiletheme
mx
playerglobal
rpc
spark
spark_dmv
sparkskins
textLayout
wireframe
On Apr 5, 2012, at 12:04 AM, Ariel Jakobovits wrote:
> Martin had a nice idea tonight on the hangout that i'd like to get group thoughts on because I'd like to build it into the website structure. His idea was to think of the Flex project as three parts:
>
> 1. Compiler
> 2. Core
> 3. Components
>
> Thoughts? Alternative breakdowns?
>
> Ariel Jakobovits
> Email: arieljake@yahoo.com
> Phone: 650-690-2213
> Fax: 650-641-0031
> Cell: 650-823-8699