Re: What is the essence of Flex? its future and the Next runtime

[sébastien Paturel <se...@gmail.com>]

No thats my thoughts, not facts !
But it would be quite logical.

I'm waiting for the answer about AIR and Flash player Next in a previous 
mail.

Le 19/10/2012 16:20, Charles Monteiro a écrit :
> "but according to its new strategic shift it will be with the new gaming
> runtime only!  "
>
> Do we know this to be true ?
> On Oct 19, 2012 8:59 AM, "sébastien Paturel" <se...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Gordon for asking about the nature of Flex.
>> Flex is a RIA sdk and not a gaming SDK, ok thats quite obvious.
>>
>> But flex must be multiscreen ! and if flex don't run on all screen it has
>> no future!
>> What has put Flex in a difficult position last month is the fact that
>> HTML5 could not be targetted!
>> What has kept Flex alive is to be able to create apps for iOS and Android
>> with the same mature framework.
>> And what can give a bright future to Flex is to be able to target as much
>> screens as possible, again, including HTML5.
>>
>> So lets define a multiscreen strategy here!
>>
>> Today:
>> Flex is multiscreen because it runs on Adobe's Flashplayer and AIR.
>> One of its big strenght is to be able to create apps for Desktops
>> (starting from flash player 10 which has unbeatable ubiquity thanks to the
>> monopoly of flash player on the video streaming area), smartphones and
>> tablets, including  iOs AND android.
>> but it can't run on HTML5. Its not a big deal yet because HTML5 is not
>> mature enough (performances) and the user usage is not much on the webapp
>> area yet, so native apps is the place to be for now.
>> It can't target linux well since AIR runtime will not target it anymore,
>> and flash player is not quite stable. Its sad but its not big deal as an
>> economic point of view, as theres not much users on it.
>> Thats what makes Flex still a rationnaly good solution nowadays, even in
>> an HTML5 hype world.
>>
>> Tomorrow:
>> If there is new mobile hardwares smartphones and tablets, Adobe will
>> probably target it with its runtimes, but according to its new strategic
>> shift it will be with the new gaming runtime only!
>> So flex won't run on those new hardwares even being based on Adobes
>> runtimes, if we do not port the framework to this new runtime architecture!
>> Am i wrong?
>> It would kill Flex for mobile, as a viable commercial solution.
>> So if the port to new Adobe runtime is a manageable amount of work (threw
>> starling2D), i think we should do it for this reason.
>> If we need to change architecture of flex sdk for it (more modularity and
>> break the UIComponent as everyone wants to), lets start with it anyway.
>> In that case Flex would still rely on Adobes runtimes for multiscreen, but
>> being inline with the new Adobe strategic shift so it would give the
>> project more time to be able to run on Adobe's free runtimes.
>> And being based on a stage3D renderer, would make the future shift to
>> openGLES more easy. Am i wrong?
>>
>> Near future:
>> IMO the goal is that:
>> Flex target openGLES and native runtimes of all mobile hardwares. My
>> personnal dream is to be able to target all screens including smart TVs and
>> gaming consoles (but for RIA apps dev)
>> Flex target HTML5 which has become mature and viable for serious RIA.
>>
>> In conclusion,
>> The first priority for flex IMO is to stay multiscreen.
>> targetting HTML5 is big priority but in a long term.
>> targetting new coming mobile hardwares is big priority in short term!
>>
>> The final questions are:
>> is it really a more rapid solution to target Next Adobe's runtime as a
>> first step before being able to target any new mobile native runtimes
>> (threw openGLES directly) or not?
>> And what we need to change first in the framework to make it possible?
>> Do flex need a language port to stay multiscreen? stay with AS3? AS4?
>> Dart? Haxe? etc.
>>
>> I'm eager to read your thoughts and arguments, pro and against.
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> Le 19/10/2012 01:28, Gordon Smith a écrit :
>>
>>> Yes, the community has to figure out what the essence of Flex really is.
>>> To me, it's an rapid-development application framework, the combination of
>>> a procedural language with a declarative language, and a widely-deployed
>>> runtime that can support RIAs. The runtime of the future for RIAs seems to
>>> be native code for mobile devices and HTML/Javascript for browser apps. The
>>> best procedural language is anything that can be compiled to these
>>> runtimes. MXML is a perfectly good declarative language for UIs.
>>>
>>> - Gordon
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Michael A. Labriola [mailto:labriola@**digitalprimates.net<la...@digitalprimates.net>
>>> ]
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 4:07 PM
>>> To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org
>>> Subject: RE: ASC 2.0 and Falcon
>>>
>>>   PS I don't think Apache Flex needs to stand for what Flex is today
>>>> though, and this is where innovation in the future needs to happen in this
>>>> project.
>>>>
>>> +65535
>>>
>>