Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Jake Churchill <re...@gmail.com>]

Hello All,

I'm curious if anyone has any benchmarks for some sample apps or real apps
that show the differences between pure actionscript and flex framework
usage in the mobile arena.  I read that it's better to use pure
actionscript if possible but I can't seem to find out HOW MUCH better it is.

I have a proof of concept app with charting and a socket connection that is
currently written using the flex framework.  I'm curious how much of a gain
I'd see converting it to actionscript.

Thanks!

-Jake

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>]

On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:49 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:

> Hi Jun,
> 
> Your correct, but at the same time. If you play with Feathers, you will realize quickly they don't really give you a UI. They give you controllers for a UI. You still need to code up ever object that is going to be displayed. Feathers does make it easier, but I'd really say it only gives you 60% of what you need.
> 
> On 2/12/2014 11:43 AM, Jun Heider wrote:

Good to know, thanks Sean!

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com>]

Hi Jun,

Your correct, but at the same time. If you play with Feathers, you will 
realize quickly they don't really give you a UI. They give you 
controllers for a UI. You still need to code up ever object that is 
going to be displayed. Feathers does make it easier, but I'd really say 
it only gives you 60% of what you need.

On 2/12/2014 11:43 AM, Jun Heider wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:
>
>> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
>> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
>> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
>> need to code up everything from the ground.
>>
>> -Sean Thayne
>>
> Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for Starling: http://feathersui.com/
> A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity app with it. :)

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>]

On 2/12/14 11:25 AM, "OmPrakash Muppirala" <bi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Feb 12, 2014 11:05 AM, "Sean Thayne" <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think it would be interesting, but not really realistic.
>>
>> The creator of Starling was unable to use the standard Flash Event and
>EventDispatcher. So he instead created his own. That plus the fact that
>all
>the Flex components are built off flash's display list classes. And
>Starling is based off their own display list classes. It makes it really a
>big big rewrite of Flex.
>>
>> It would be very very cool though. If you could use the power of Flex
>with the performance of Starling. That would be amazing.
>>
>
>It is definitely possible, especially with the new FlexJS SDK.  If someone
>has time to play with it, that would be great.  If course, there would be
>no cross-compiling Starling stuff to JS, but the way the new SDK is built,
>it should be possible to use a Starling based display list, I believe.
It would cross-compile if the API surface of such components did not
expose the Stage3D APIs (which also means, no fancy transforms on the UI
Widgets).  If you are just going to use Stage3D to more quickly render
rectangular UI Widgets, then the same API should be available in the
browser.

That said, I still want solid proof that Stage3D is that much faster than
the display list for displaying rectangles.  I still think the main
performance difference folks see is due to overhead in the Flex Framework.

-Alex

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[OmPrakash Muppirala <bi...@gmail.com>]

On Feb 12, 2014 11:05 AM, "Sean Thayne" <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:
>
> I think it would be interesting, but not really realistic.
>
> The creator of Starling was unable to use the standard Flash Event and
EventDispatcher. So he instead created his own. That plus the fact that all
the Flex components are built off flash's display list classes. And
Starling is based off their own display list classes. It makes it really a
big big rewrite of Flex.
>
> It would be very very cool though. If you could use the power of Flex
with the performance of Starling. That would be amazing.
>

It is definitely possible, especially with the new FlexJS SDK.  If someone
has time to play with it, that would be great.  If course, there would be
no cross-compiling Starling stuff to JS, but the way the new SDK is built,
it should be possible to use a Starling based display list, I believe.

Thanks,
Om

>
> On 2/12/2014 12:00 PM, flex@dfguy.us wrote:
>>
>> I did a flex mobile app and also compiled an example feathers project.
It appears that the hardware acceleration with starling/feathers is the
same performance as native apps while flex has a larger set of libraries
that are loaded and run on the cpu. You use a number of techniques to
reduce computations to speed up flex. The flex framework does have a
massive amount of features available via mail and action script though.
>>
>> What I was wondering was if it would be possible to create some feathers
based flex components for some of the basic ui stuff like scrolling lists.
I also wondered about using the starling objects (sprite/movieclip) at the
base level of the flex framework but I don't think that's possible because
starling isn't a complete replacement of all objects but I could be wrong.
The only other thing that cam to mind would be to render out a flex
application to a hardware accelerated display object of some kind but I'm
not sure if the slowness is due to the flex rendering or just managing the
framework on the VP in which case replacing the rendering phase and
communications between the two would still be slower.
>>
>> In the past there were times that I used flex libraries in pure action
script projects as well by including some of the flex swc files and
instantiating classes in actionscript. I think I did this with some of the
recipient classes for example.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>
>> To: dev@flex.apache.org
>> Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:43 PM
>> Subject: Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk
>>
>>
>> On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
>>> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is
much
>>> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So
you
>>> need to code up everything from the ground.
>>>
>>> -Sean Thayne
>>>
>> Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for
Starling: http://feathersui.com/
>> A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity
app with it. :)
>>
>

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com>]

I think it would be interesting, but not really realistic.

The creator of Starling was unable to use the standard Flash Event and 
EventDispatcher. So he instead created his own. That plus the fact that 
all the Flex components are built off flash's display list classes. And 
Starling is based off their own display list classes. It makes it really 
a big big rewrite of Flex.

It would be very very cool though. If you could use the power of Flex 
with the performance of Starling. That would be amazing.

On 2/12/2014 12:00 PM, flex@dfguy.us wrote:
> I did a flex mobile app and also compiled an example feathers project. It appears that the hardware acceleration with starling/feathers is the same performance as native apps while flex has a larger set of libraries that are loaded and run on the cpu. You use a number of techniques to reduce computations to speed up flex. The flex framework does have a massive amount of features available via mail and action script though.
>
> What I was wondering was if it would be possible to create some feathers based flex components for some of the basic ui stuff like scrolling lists. I also wondered about using the starling objects (sprite/movieclip) at the base level of the flex framework but I don't think that's possible because starling isn't a complete replacement of all objects but I could be wrong. The only other thing that cam to mind would be to render out a flex application to a hardware accelerated display object of some kind but I'm not sure if the slowness is due to the flex rendering or just managing the framework on the VP in which case replacing the rendering phase and communications between the two would still be slower.
>
> In the past there were times that I used flex libraries in pure action script projects as well by including some of the flex swc files and instantiating classes in actionscript. I think I did this with some of the recipient classes for example.
>
> David
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>
> To: dev@flex.apache.org
> Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:43 PM
> Subject: Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk
>
>
> On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:
>
>> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
>> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
>> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
>> need to code up everything from the ground.
>>
>> -Sean Thayne
>>
> Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for Starling: http://feathersui.com/
> A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity app with it. :)
>

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[fl...@dfguy.us]

Text auto complete messed that up ...

*mail = mxml
*VP = VM
*recipient = rpc



-----Original Message-----
From: flex@dfguy.us
To: dev@flex.apache.org
Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

I did a flex mobile app and also compiled an example feathers project. It appears that the hardware acceleration with starling/feathers is the same performance as native apps while flex has a larger set of libraries that are loaded and run on the cpu. You use a number of techniques to reduce computations to speed up flex. The flex framework does have a massive amount of features available via mail and action script though. 

What I was wondering was if it would be possible to create some feathers based flex components for some of the basic ui stuff like scrolling lists. I also wondered about using the starling objects (sprite/movieclip) at the base level of the flex framework but I don't think that's possible because starling isn't a complete replacement of all objects but I could be wrong. The only other thing that cam to mind would be to render out a flex application to a hardware accelerated display object of some kind but I'm not sure if the slowness is due to the flex rendering or just managing the framework on the VP in which case replacing the rendering phase and communications between the two would still be slower.

In the past there were times that I used flex libraries in pure action script projects as well by including some of the flex swc files and instantiating classes in actionscript. I think I did this with some of the recipient classes for example.

David 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>
To: dev@flex.apache.org
Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk


On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:

> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
> need to code up everything from the ground.
> 
> -Sean Thayne
> 

Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for Starling: http://feathersui.com/
A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity app with it. :)

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[fl...@dfguy.us]

I did a flex mobile app and also compiled an example feathers project. It appears that the hardware acceleration with starling/feathers is the same performance as native apps while flex has a larger set of libraries that are loaded and run on the cpu. You use a number of techniques to reduce computations to speed up flex. The flex framework does have a massive amount of features available via mail and action script though. 

What I was wondering was if it would be possible to create some feathers based flex components for some of the basic ui stuff like scrolling lists. I also wondered about using the starling objects (sprite/movieclip) at the base level of the flex framework but I don't think that's possible because starling isn't a complete replacement of all objects but I could be wrong. The only other thing that cam to mind would be to render out a flex application to a hardware accelerated display object of some kind but I'm not sure if the slowness is due to the flex rendering or just managing the framework on the VP in which case replacing the rendering phase and communications between the two would still be slower.

In the past there were times that I used flex libraries in pure action script projects as well by including some of the flex swc files and instantiating classes in actionscript. I think I did this with some of the recipient classes for example.

David 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>
To: dev@flex.apache.org
Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk


On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:

> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
> need to code up everything from the ground.
> 
> -Sean Thayne
> 

Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for Starling: http://feathersui.com/
A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity app with it. :)

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Jun Heider <ju...@realeyes.com>]

On Feb 12, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com> wrote:

> I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
> Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
> faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
> need to code up everything from the ground.
> 
> -Sean Thayne
> 

Sean, pretty much agree with you, but don't forget about Feathers for Starling: http://feathersui.com/
A coworker of mine has recently but a pretty sweet mobile productivity app with it. :)

Re: Flex vs. Actionscript Mobile Benchmarsk

[Sean Thayne <se...@skyseek.com>]

I think it's pretty well known that Flex is not the fastest system for
Air/Flash. It's just the most feature complete system. Starling/AS3 is much
faster than Flex. But it doesn't have any real components/features. So you
need to code up everything from the ground.

-Sean Thayne


On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Jake Churchill <re...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I'm curious if anyone has any benchmarks for some sample apps or real apps
> that show the differences between pure actionscript and flex framework
> usage in the mobile arena.  I read that it's better to use pure
> actionscript if possible but I can't seem to find out HOW MUCH better it
> is.
>
> I have a proof of concept app with charting and a socket connection that is
> currently written using the flex framework.  I'm curious how much of a gain
> I'd see converting it to actionscript.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Jake
>