Adobe Releases AIR, Flex 3

[Toe]

What about this exactly is propietary?
Air runtime = free
Flash player = free & parts of it open sourced through mozilla
Flex SDK (for creating flash applications) = free & open source
Flash remoting (blaze ds) = free & open source
Creating html/ajax = free
Sql lite = free
pdf = open standard

Flex Builder and Creative Suite, which are quite proprietary. And most certainly not free (costing up to $700 and $1800 respectively).

Just like PDF is, as you say, an open standard and Acrobat Reader is free... but Acrobat Pro is startlingly expensive.

 

[s9tpepper]

Flex Builder and Creative Suite, which are quite proprietary. And most certainly not free (costing up to $700 and $1800 respectively).

Just like PDF is, as you say, an open standard and Acrobat Reader is free... but Acrobat Pro is startlingly expensive.

Actually Flex Builder is 249 dollars, but you can create Flex without the Flex Builder IDE, using the Flex SDK. And there are lots of ways to export and create PDFs.

 

[zimv20]

By "backend" I mean the core application logic as opposed to the "frontend" which is the GUI.

understood.

AMF looks like it's client originated. Maybe I'm confusing what you meant by subscribers-- are you referring to individual application instances accessing shared data, or GUI elements accessing local data (like Cocoa's bindings)? The server can't access the clients over AMF, without the clients polling first, right?

clients don't need to poll the server, they can subscribe to events and adobe's LiveCycle will push it out to them. this case is where you've got disparate client apps (like my ebay example) reflecting data changes made on the server.

but this kind of data binding also works intra-app. e.g. you can give, say, a Tree control what's called a data provider, and the framework will handle all the internal messaging and publishing details. what you get in this example is any update to the data provider (perhaps the XML model has a node added, and this could be from elsewhere w/in the app or a message from the server) results in the Tree control redrawing itself.

 

[zimv20]

hey, if anyone wants to see a code example that involves data binding, check out an adobe datagrid example.

there's some XML provided, and the datagrid is bound to that (so any changes to that model will update the datagrid view). there's also a form that's bound to the selected item in the datagrid, so that form updates each time an item is selected.

you can see how easy it is to set up that stuff in mxml, and the framework handles all the details of setting up the event listeners and broadcasting the change messages.

 

[Toe]

Actually Flex Builder is 249 dollars, but you can create Flex without the Flex Builder IDE, using the Flex SDK. And there are lots of ways to export and create PDFs.

In typical Adobe fashion, it's $250 for the Standard, $700 for the Pro.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/buy/

And while there are plenty of ways to do PDF things, somehow they seem to be making a chunk of money off Acrobat.

(I'm not saying Adobe's the evil empire or anything, just pointing out that they do of course have a profit motive.)

 

[Analog Kid]

clients don't need to poll the server, they can subscribe to events and adobe's LiveCycle will push it out to them. this case is where you've got disparate client apps (like my ebay example) reflecting data changes made on the server.

but this kind of data binding also works intra-app. e.g. you can give, say, a Tree control what's called a data provider, and the framework will handle all the internal messaging and publishing details. what you get in this example is any update to the data provider (perhaps the XML model has a node added, and this could be from elsewhere w/in the app or a message from the server) results in the Tree control redrawing itself.

The AMF link you gave seems to indicate that it communicates over http-- which would make it tough for the server to contact a client unless the client polls, or if the client holds a control channel open... The other alternative would be to have the client app leave a hole open in the firewall and listen on a port.

hey, if anyone wants to see a code example that involves data binding, check out an adobe datagrid example.

there's some XML provided, and the datagrid is bound to that (so any changes to that model will update the datagrid view). there's also a form that's bound to the selected item in the datagrid, so that form updates each time an item is selected.

you can see how easy it is to set up that stuff in mxml, and the framework handles all the details of setting up the event listeners and broadcasting the change messages.

This use is very similar to Cocoa data bindings. Very nice for minimizing glue code...

 

[davepelz]

In typical Adobe fashion, it's $250 for the Standard, $700 for the Pro.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/buy/

And while there are plenty of ways to do PDF things, somehow they seem to be making a chunk of money off Acrobat.

(I'm not saying Adobe's the evil empire or anything, just pointing out that they do of course have a profit motive.)

Yes of course they have a profit motive, they are a public company!

I think the point is that they don't force you into using flexbuilder or the creative suite, they just offer them as options. In many cases people already have them so they added some functionality for working with AIR.

And so they integrated all their software. I don't see the fault with this? Why wouldn't you make all your applications nicely integrated with a runtime you created and are offering for free?

Yes there are some advantages to using Fexbuilder over another IDE or Dreamweaver vs another text editor, but you certainly aren't crippled in your AIR development if you choose not to purchase them. In fact for flex developing some serious enterprise developers prefer not to use Flexbuilder.

So they have clearly made it a point for AIR to not require purchasing any Adobe software to develop for it, which is why I have a hard time understanding people complaining that AIR is part of this evil proprietary ecosystem. You can make an equally badass AIR application using no Adobe software.

The fact is the only thing that is proprietary is the runtime, and it is free.

 

[davepelz]

Glass half full baby!

It seems like nobody is focusing on the "glass half full" scenario here. For example, how about an AJAX developer who's already using an open source IDE (or adobe competitor) who now has the ability to develop desktop applications for mac, windows and linux and all they have to do is download the free AIR SDK. How sweet a gift is that?

 

[Stratification]

It seems like nobody is focusing on the "glass half full" scenario here. For example, how about an AJAX developer who's already using an open source IDE (or adobe competitor) who now has the ability to develop desktop applications for mac, windows and linux and all they have to do is download the free AIR SDK. How sweet a gift is that?

Exactly, pair AIR with something like Aptana and some great apps can be made without a dime spent if that's the route you want to go.

 

[s9tpepper]

In typical Adobe fashion, it's $250 for the Standard, $700 for the Pro.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/buy/

And while there are plenty of ways to do PDF things, somehow they seem to be making a chunk of money off Acrobat.

(I'm not saying Adobe's the evil empire or anything, just pointing out that they do of course have a profit motive.)

Of course they have a profit motive. They're not a non-profit organization. Do you work for free? I don't think so... Adobe is contributing to the Open Source community (Flex SDK, Tamarin) but at the same time they need to make money to keep bringing these technologies, so of course they charge. And you obviously have not used Flex Pro and Standard to see how much more you get from Flex Pro.