we are not talking about exploying to mobile browsers but about using
HTML5 engine for native apps like Cordova does.
And again, thats not what the industry is doing TODAY. but tomorrow, we
can except that the same shift that we observed on Desktop will happen
on Mobiles, and see the apps going to be webapps.
"you are then better off writing a native HTML/JS UI"
for very simple apps maybe, but for fairly complex ones no.
And if you prefer going native and rewrite everything at any time you
must target a new platform (even for simple apps), why you like flex in
the first place?
Le 17/11/2012 15:47, Hordur Thordarson a écrit :
While I understand the desire to deploy mobile apps to mobile browsers, I would
just point out again that this is not what the industry is doing, and there are
reasons for that.
The reasons are that in the mobile browser you can't get the same performance,
the same UI experience and the same access to native features as you can in a
native app. Also, you can't distribute your app in the same way (correct me if
I'm wrong please).
That being said, there are scenarios where it is actually desireable to be able
to deploy to the browser, but I think you are then better off writing a native
HTML/JS UI with best-of-breed tools for that toolstack, rather than going some
cross-compilation roundabout way.
On 17.11.2012, at 14:10, Nils Dupont wrote:
When you say HTML5 is not ready yet for entreprise RIA, I agree with you
for desktop applications (it is what I added in nota bene) because of
current browser fragmentation (there are still companies using IE7...), but
in the mobile world, browsers are far in advance concerning HTML5/JS. And
it appears to me that Apache Cordova can generate decent entreprise
oriented RIA applications, that IMO is the main target of Flex framework
nowadays. If you want to develop a CPU intensive application and you need
to use GPU capabilities, it is maybe better to use Starling directly.
I don't know Haxe, I am sure it is a great technology and it is fore sure a
way to consider for the future of Apache Flex.
But it would be also interesting to be able to write a Flex Mobile
application with almost the same code as today, that can target 7 different
mobile OS without the help of Air runtime. It could be a strong commercial
arguments when selling Flex technology to customers (no more HTML5 vs
Flash, but in contrast the possibilty to use the best of two worlds).
Nils
2012/11/17 sébastien Paturel <sebpatu.f...@gmail.com>
i was in fact talking about enterprise app.
it is already quite rapidly heavy perf consuming.
if all says that HTML5 is not ready yet for RIA and enterprise apps that
flex can do very well, why the hell would we try to render flex on HTML5
engine for native apps.
I was talking about 3D rendering, in a starling sens, as a background
rendering engine, not as application.
Le 17/11/2012 14:25, Nils Dupont a écrit :
It really depends on which kind of application you want to deploy. I was
more thinking of common "entreprise" oriented applications, e.g. a few
views, with a few lists and a few forms. For 3D rendering I agree that it
is not the best way to go.
2012/11/17 sébastien Paturel <sebpatu.f...@gmail.com>
Does not cordova only launch a web browser wrapped in an native app?
If so, its very bad result in terms of performances right?
in a native app environement, we can leverage from 3D rendering (the best
performances), but with cordova solution, we will use the lowest
performant
renderer available, the HTML5 renderer.
it does not sound very promising to me, but maybe i'm wrong.
Le 17/11/2012 14:14, Nils Dupont a écrit :
Has anyone tried to make a bridge between Apache Flex and Apache
Cordova?
I mean generating an Apache Cordova HTML5/JS application from a Flex
Mobile
MXML/AS3 application (at least for a subset of Flex Mobile components
e.g.
views & transitions, lists, input controls, native APIs access, web
service
access, etc.)
Apache Cordova has the advantage to be able to target 7 different mobile
OS
and of course is open source.
For the UI controls, it is possible to use different librairies (JQuery
UI,
Twitter Bootstrap, etc.)
Maybe it is also an other way to consider in order to be able to deploy
Flex Mobile applications to mobile devices without
the use of Air runtime?
Nils
NB: Concerning desktop applications, Flash Player remains, in my
opinion,
the best way to deploy cross-browser applications.
2012/11/17 Maxime Cowez <maxime.co...@gmail.com>
Are developers on this list still able to earn a living building new
Flex apps, or are you maintaining old ones?
I was actually hired 9 months ago by my current company to set up a new
Flex development branch, as they wanted a share of the market in that
area.
As such I am mainly creating new "enterprise" apps for government
clients
so I can take full advantage of Spark and don't have to worry about
legacy
too much. From my experience in that short amount of time I can tell
you
this: we started by creating small(-ish), fairly risc-free projects,
which
we could deliver with very good quality and on time even though on a
tight
deadline. Because of Flex's RAD (rapid application development)
possibilities we were able to use prototypes to discuss functionality
early
in the development process. All of which lead to very satisfied
customers,
of which some were known to be "clients from hell". Bigger orders are
rolling in as we speak.
I'd like to highlight one specific approach we took in selling Flex: a
customer wanted us specifically to use Dojo as a technology. We took
the
risk to develop a small prototype in Flex and presented it to them.
They
saw immediately that the UX was far superior to what they were used to.
And
we told them we could *perhaps* deliver the same with Dojo, but it
would
cost them at least twice as much (which is a true estimate - not just
for
selling purposes - and we had just proven by delivering the prototype
in
no
time). They did not have to think very long about it...
We've been trying out various enterprise-level HMTL5/JS frameworks and
the
truth is, none of them comes even close to what Flex can do in terms of
stability, possibilities, performance and most importantly (for the
customer) development time. And yes I've included performance in that
list:
none of those enterprise-level frameworks have decent performance
compared
to Flex when presenting lots of data; I'm only speaking of classic
web-applications here.
@paul There's a team not far from my desk that's making a GIS
application
with GWT: the project is a total mess and we're loosing money on it.
To sum it up: from my experience Flex as it is now still can be sold in
markets that are not too sensitive to buzzwords.
On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Paul Hastings <
paul.hasti...@gmail.com
wrote:
Are developers on this list still able to earn a living building new
Flex
apps, or are you maintaining old ones?
in our neck of the woods flex is still kind of king for old school
GIS
applications (analytical/decision support/etc.) especially w/ESRI
backends.
mainly for desktops & some stripped down functionality for
tablets--much
of
the processing is shared between client & backends.
while i'm sure there are some big/complex JS/JTML5 apps for this
market
somewhere, haven't actually seen any.
