Another penny... Adobe was not good at marketing Flex (or AIR). And I don't think we're doing well at selling or marketing Flex either. How many people or clients know it's the best solution out there for targeting multiple platforms plus it's many other benefits? I can't speak for everyone but I know I didn't mention it enough. The main problem is the unstable relation the player and AIR. It's not meant to run without it. We need everyone to know this is the best solution out there including our clients and tell them the problems.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Ben Dalton <bendal...@gmail.com> wrote: > Another couple pennies worth of input... > > One of the things that isn't being considered is that even though you can > compile the Haxe language back down to many different bytecodes, it's still > not a way to directly remove the dependency on Adobe's runtime. So much of > the core of Flex is dependent on the flashplayerglobal libraries which > won't be present in other runtimes. > > My guess is that in order to achieve any sort of independence, we'll need > to first consider the targeted runtimes and figure out what's the minimum > common denominator feature set we feel comfortable depending on and > rearchitect the framework around that functionality being available to our > framework and abstracted out into a common interface. > > I don't think it will simply be sufficient to "rebase" our framework on top > of another runtime and attempt to bridge the gap between the target runtime > and what was offered in FP. That sounds like a recipe for headache at best. > > My vote for all of this is to keep dependence on AS3 and FP for Flex 5. > Focusing on improvements in performance and load times while focusing on > compatibility with AIR as a major aspect of our development. > > After Flex 5, we can reconsider targeting other platforms or other > languages for development. > > > > On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Fréderic Cox <coxfrede...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Personally I think we are looking at the wrong problem here. The changes > > proposed seem quite drastic to me. I believe we can achieve great things > > using the current codebase and target. Sure, we need to remove the > > dependency from Flash at some time but we need to be realistic here .. > > Porting too Haxe, porting to HTML/JS, ... they are not realistic targets > > for now due to the limited features compared to what we currently have. > > After that we can look at porting to a target that has the same feature > > capabilities. This can be HTML5 but at this moment this is not the case > so > > I believe we shouldn't look at too drastic options which might bring this > > project down. Let's produce results by fixing bugs and improving > > performance. You'll see that a lot of the "frustration" around > performance > > is due to the code in the Flex framework and not AS3. > > > > On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 10:13 PM, Bruce Montague < > > bruce_monta...@symantec.com> wrote: > > > > > Hi, I do not know that much about Flex, the history of Flex, or all the > > > other background relating to this thread, etc.. How realistic would it > be > > > for an open source community to write an open source, portable, (likely > > > vanilla C), equivalent of Flash Player and the AVM? Maybe not > including > > > all of the features, but a good-enough subset? Haven't there been a > > couple > > > of attempts to do this, some with earlier versions of donated code? > (Was > > > that really open source code?) Why did none of these efforts succeed? > > > Patents on codecs and the like? > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > -bruce > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Gordon Smith [mailto:gosm...@adobe.com] > > > Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 12:58 PM > > > To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org > > > Subject: RE: Flex 5 in haxe > > > > > > > From what I previously read, I don't think we were getting an updated > > > Falcon compiler that will generate AVM3 code. > > > > They were not planning on open-sourcing that (but correct me if I'm > > > wrong in that aspect). > > > > > > That's correct. Adobe has no plans to open-source its new AS4-for-V12 > > > compiler. > > > > > > - Gordon > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Nicholas Kwiatkowski [mailto:nicho...@spoon.as] > > > Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 12:27 PM > > > To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org > > > Subject: Re: Flex 5 in haxe > > > > > > On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 3:08 PM, Stefan Horochovec < > > > stefan.horocho...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > [snip] > > > > > > > > > > The development of the new VM and AS4 specification is not reported > or > > > > discussed with Apache Flex, knowing that we depend exclusively of > > > > Flash Player and AIR to execute applications. This in my opinion is > > > terrible. > > > > > > > > Again we will have to wait for an update from Falcon to generate code > > > > for the V12, this delay the progress of the Flex when we are > expecting > > > > more and more code from Adobe. > > > > > > > > I'm not saying that we should use haxe, or some other compiler, just > > > > think the time is an even broader discussion. The Flex should > continue > > > > only with Flash Player / Adobe AIR runtime? > > > > > > > > > > This is, and has been par for the course. When Adobe doesn't want to > > hear > > > us whine and moan, they close off development. It happened before > (and > > in > > > many more products than just Flex/Flash), and I'm sure it will happen > > > often in the future. They feel they can surround themselves with > > > "stakeholders" > > > (a small, select subset of customers that their marketing team found > > them) > > > to make major changes to platforms, products, etc. At least this > time, > > > they were pretty clear in saying we wouldn't have a seat in the table > for > > > the future. Previous times they gave us the illusion that we did. > > > > > > From what I previously read, I don't think we were getting an updated > > > Falcon compiler that will generate AVM3 code. They were not planning > on > > > open-sourcing that (but correct me if I'm wrong in that aspect). > > > > > > I'm pretty sure the community as a whole over the last 11 months have > > > determined to break our dependency of the Flash Player. We've had a > LOT > > of > > > proposals on how to do it -- none of them executed yet. The silliest > of > > > the bunch in my opinion is porting to HaXe or starting from scratch. > Our > > > power is leveraged from Adobe's initial 200,000 hours of labor over the > > > last many years. We got an awesome code-base that while, it needs some > > > major tweaks, is is really good shape. Dumping out the baby with the > > > bath-water is not the way to go on a platform that is mature and used > by > > > MANY large enterprises. That being said -- this is now in the Apache > > > world and I can't stop anybody from doing that, but I won't also be > > > helping redo Flex from scratch. > > > > > > -Nick > > > > > >
