The Flex Builder “Identity Crisis” and the Flash Platform

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Lee Brimelow left a comment over on Keith Peter’s blog about Flex Builder. That spawned a pretty well read post over on calm in the chaos (great name). As someone that has been doing Flex development since the 1.5 days, here’s what I’ll tell you.

One, Flex is a great brand. I love the Flex brand. It’s not going away and in fact we want the community to embrace that brand. Things like the Flex Show and 360 Flex should show that we really support the community using the Flex brand. But anyone that has done Flex development over the past 5 years knows that there’s been some confusion over the kinds of apps that you’re building. Flex apps? Flash apps? They use the Flex Framework but they still run on the Flash Player. Even though you may not have used Flash Professional to build them.

So here’s the deal. The Flash Platform is going to be all encompassing. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Flex exclusively or Flash Professional exclusively – we’re all building Flash applications. Everything we create ultimately compiles down to the SWF format. That’s the Flash Platform. And Adobe has a ton of tools that target the Flash platform. We’ve got Flash Professional, we’ve got Flash Catalyst, we’ve got Flex Builder, we’ve got ancillary projects like Alchemy. Imagine all of those tools working seamlessly together. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had one single brand of tools to use to target the platform? Wouldn’t that help clear up some of the confusion in the community? And the think about the strength of that brand for developers as we move into the mobile space. Ultimately I think this helps bring together everyone that’s building anything on the Flash Platform.

Related posts:

  1. The Flash Platform (again) and Hello Flash Catalyst
  2. Flash Platform Takes a Leap with Flex Builder 2 Beta
  3. New Flex Builder Pricing
  4. Will Tools like Aviary With Flex/AIR Replace GIMP and Help Designers on Linux?
  5. The Problem with the Flash Platform is Lack of Talent
  • http://blogna.org Tim McLeod

    Ryan,
    I completely agree. There’s somewhat of a disconnect between the Flash community and the Flex community. Both communities are passionate about their tools, but there doesn’t seem to be much overlap yet. I think it’s coming though….in a big way. Flash is seen as more of a designer’s tool to the Flex community, when in fact, Flash developers were building data driven RIAs long before Flex became mainstream. On the flip side, many Flash developers seem to be intimidated by the hard-core-coder perception of Flex developers and Flex Builder. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential in bringing together those 2 groups. Good post.

    Tim

  • http://chrisgriffith.wordpress.com Chris Griffith

    This brings back memories of the whole Shockwave mess from Macromedia. Ask JD about that one…

  • barry.b

    ‘s funny. when we started our Flex user group, we deliberately called it “Flash Platform” for all the same reasons. glad to see others think the same way.

    but what about AIR? is that under the same banner?

    is that part of “Flash Platform”? for our user group it’s “yes” but that’s because most of the AIR stuff is with Flex componentry and not a lot with HTML/JS

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  • Sebastian

    Well, from a developer’s perspective, I hope, the name Flex is kept – even though the number of developers interested in Flash Platform applications is increasing (especially since AS3 is out), there is still the urban myth that Flash is only suitable for nice designs but not for “real applications”. From my experience the “Flex” brand has a better standing here and is seen as more serious both by managers and customers.

    Best,
    S.

  • Joc

    In my experience, the name Flash still has the wrong connotations if you are trying to sell a client a ‘serious’ application. This is probably something that we all have to work on to change but for now I find it a far easier sell using the ‘Flex platform’ it just sounds more serious I guess.

    Joc

  • todd

    I like having Flex be separate than Flash. Then clients don’t realize that we’re trying to build complex software that runs in an environment architected around timeline animation.

  • http://www.remotesynthesis.com Brian Rinaldi

    Hey, great seeing you at MAX!

    I do think it is a little confusing. For instance, they changed the name of Flex Camp to Flash Camp…which, to my mind, doesn’t sound like at all the same thing (maybe Flash Platform Camp would have been more informative but a lousy name).

  • http://subvert.ca/ Geof Harries

    It’s a shame Flex is taking a backseat to Flash with this re-branding exercise. To web application programmers outside of the Adobe realm, Flex was the first presentation and behavioural layer they seriously considered using outside of Ajax. That’s a major leap and Flex cleared the gap. Now I feel like retreating to the Flash brand will undo all of that hard-earned progress.

  • http://www.matthewfabb.com Matthew Fabb

    As I mentioned on Keith’s blog, I think Flex could have used a rebranding when moving from version 1.5 to 2, as most people recognized Flex as a server product at the time. I don’t think that’s as big of an issue anymore. As I think the Flex brand name is now quite strong and should not be changed when referring to the framework. As others have mentioned above, Flash name still has a lot of baggage attached to it and it can sometimes be easier to sell Flex as a technology than to have to use the Flash brand name.

    The brand confusion that I see happening now is with Flex Builder when doing non-Flex development. It’s common knowledge that the code editor for the Flash IDE sucks for doing anything beyond small scripts. For some developers Flex Builder is their code editor of choice for creating non-Flex Flash websites. Adobe could probably sell more copies of Flex Builder to this group looking for a solid ActionScript code editor if it had a more encompassing name. A new name that I hope would encompass both Flash and Flex work, like ActionScript Coder, or SWF Builder (although as Keith pointed out, this SWF Builder could cause confusion for those creating AIR applications).

    That’s my 2 cents.

  • ryanstewart

    It sounds like I wasn’t entirely clear. Flex as a brand isn’t going away, but it’s probably only going to be used for the Framework and the SDK.

    Most everything else will probably end up under the umbrella of the Flash Platform.

    If you remember correctly, it was that same “Flash isn’t for serious developers” that led to the focus on the Flex brand. I agreed with that at the time, but now I think Flash has outgrown a lot of those old skip intro prejudices. Flash is used for a TON of stuff on the web. Building full applications, creating animations, doing video, real time communication, desktop applications, etc. Bringing everything under Flash brand helps all of the developers and designers who target our platform.

    =Ryan
    ryan@adobe.com

  • http://subvert.ca/ Geof Harries

    I don’t necessarily agree with the notion that Flash has outgrown the “skip intro, spinning logo” prejudices. I’ve met some very intelligent, tech-savvy senior IT managers and programming team leaders who cringe at the idea of Flash, but will openly embrace Flex. Depending on where you live and work, Flash means very different things to any number of people, sadly, most of it negative.

  • ryanstewart

    @Geof, I agree with that. But I also think we’ve got to change that perception. Changing everything to Flex isn’t going to work because Flash has a very good brand.

    So I see this as the best option. Associate Flex more closely with Flash so you can still go in and sell companies on Flex/Flash while also improving the ecosystem for everyone. Hopefully it will get easier as Flash gets a better and better rep in enterprises and big IT shops.

  • http://www.matthewfabb.com Matthew Fabb

    Ryan: “I think Flash has outgrown a lot of those old skip intro prejudices.”
    While over the top Flash splash pages are rarely used anymore, I still encounter all sorts of people who think Flash is just a tool for animation and video. That’s slowly changing with the growing number of great Flash and Flex applications out there, but I still think the platform has a long way to go to get move beyond those prejudices.
    Because clients, customers, developers who work in other languages are not aware of the advances of the Flash Player and as they are not exposed to many Flash-based applications.
    Just a week ago, InsideRIA.com asked the question “Is Flash only suitable for Cartoons?”:
    http://www.insideria.com/2008/11/is-flash-only-suitable-for-car.html
    Now most who responded were against that notion, but I think that’s expected given InsideRIA’s audience and the number of Flex articles written for that site.
    However, I think Microsoft has successfully been pushing that notion with selling Silverlight to developers. I’ve have rarely seen any Silverlight examples that push what differentiates it from Flash, instead they are often applications that could have been Flash-based, but many developers are still incredibly impressed with these examples as if what they are seeing had never been done before on the web.
    There are still many clients and developers (talking about backend developers or even IT departments) who still need to be sold that web applications are possible in Flash via existing examples or with a basic prototype of the project. With so many existing examples out there now, many by big brand names, it’s a lot easier to sell Flash and Flex than it used to be, but some thing that still needs to be done for some.

  • http://www.insideria.com RJ

    The problem isn’t Flex. Having a language that compiles content named something different doesn’t cause any confusion at all – that’s the way Java, C++, and every application platform ever have worked. No one ever says, “Let me go run this C++ program…” It’s just an executable.

    The problem here is Flash. What is Flash? A platform? An IDE? A file format? The plug-in player? The Flash Professional Authoring tool is the one who needs the rename – Flash needs to be just a platform, with many different ways to develop content for it.

    But the name’s just a result of history, from the days when Flash was the only way to build Flash content, and as it’s Adobe’s strongest living brand, it’s certainly not going to go away any time soon. Just don’t go pinning the naming confusion on Flex. :)

  • http://thedesktube.com dzedward

    “It’s common knowledge that the code editor for the Flash IDE sucks for doing anything beyond small scripts.”

    I think this statement is completely incorrect, and near sighted. I’ve never touched Flex once, and I’m no animator, but a programmer that codes both with Classes and on the timeline if necessary. Whats really so wrong with the Flash IDE’s code editor, just because it doesn’t give you super duper code hints it’s not good? If you type cast your vars and use correct naming conventions for instance names, you’ll get those hints. Of course, not custom classes. If built tons of large scale web apps that contain 10+ class files, so your statement is flawed and the reason people think Flash is not for major web apps.

  • http://www.tink.ws/blog Tink

    I think the point was the naming of Flex Builder, as many people use this tool to create content that doesn’t use the Flex framework, i.e. coding to compile with Flash, or AS 3.0 Projects.

    I think the would be better named;

    Flash Designer, Flash Developer & Flash Catalyst, all creating content for the Flash Player, all part of the Flash Platform, enabling Adobe to then sell a Flash Suite.

    ” If built tons of large scale web apps that contain 10+ class files, so your statement is flawed and the reason people think Flash is not for major web apps”

    @ dzedward – that fact that you have managed to build these apps using the built in code editor in Flash doesn’t mean its a good code editor. The code editor does very little to aid development.

  • http://www.curiousfind.com Jamie McDaniel

    “Flash Designer, Flash Developer & Flash Catalyst, all creating content for the Flash Player…”

    I like that.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    I dunno. They’re all just tools in the Adobe Flash Platform toolbox. Granted, if the Flash IDE (for coding) was a hammer, it would be the crappiest hammer in the toolbox. ;)

    Think about the branding. First, they are all Adobe products. They all have the Adobe Logo. Branding the Flash Platform should be the same way. Flash Platform tools should be branded to be recognized not only as Adobe products but also as a member of the FP family. That would unify the product family under the Adobe brand.

    IMO, the argument of Flash as a “skip intro/animation tool” is mute here. Those perceptions are not the perceptions of the audience Adobe is selling these tools to in the first place. Those are mostly the perceptions of the user interacting with a web site, not the developer or designer.

  • Stephen Buckley

    There is a danger of Flash becoming the beggar at the feast, 4 things I would like to see to improve Flash Pro (CS5 whatever).

    1) Improve the code editor, especially for those who have to do AS3 coding and deal with legacy code in AS2 at the same time.

    2)Command line compile for Flash based projects using FLA, FLG or FLX
    Think MTASC on steroids

    3)There is no usable doc tool for large Flash based projects ASDocs will often fail when used on non Flex based projects

    4)One of the reason that people use FDT is that is is far kinder and shows errors as you type, this sort of Intellisense in both Flex and Flash would make developers more productive One of the things that new developers struggle with when they first start out in Flash is the fact that AS code is checked for errors only at compile time and so they can type a class and its methods and then be presented with 5 or 6 error messages when they come to build (Try watching designers try to code fr the first time in the Flash IDE, if it was not so painful it would be a hoot!)
    But it makes the learning curve very steep to start with. Even some developers have found the transition to AS3 hard.

    So the next generations of tools need to find the pain points and propose solutions.

    There is not currently a well defined round trip between Flash and Flash Catalyst and it should if possible be almost seamless

    Many of us still do not has the option of using Flex for some AS3 applications since we may have to keep the file size low due to area of application and so framework caching is not a total solution.

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  • http://cyrilhanquez.com Cyril Hanquez

    I know many people who are still considering “Flash” as a tool to build animated stuff (their words were more something like “a toy for the Sega generation”). So talking about Flex to build business apps is a bit easier, even if it’s just a question a minutes to introduce the word “Flash” in the conversation :-)

  • http://apfelknacker.de Peter

    Youre right. I’m missing that link between the Flash- and Flexdevelopers, especially in the german community. Theyre talking about each other like they were enemys sometimes. Strange thing.

  • http://www.vdeprojects.com Tom Van den Eynde

    I completely agree with Geof Harries. Tell someone you’re going to use Flash for their next business application and you most probably can leave right away. I really hope that Flex will be kept as a name to refer to ‘web application development’ and Flash to refer to ‘web design development’. If you don’t we’ll probably end up in naming soup exactly like the current Flex Data Services / Livecycle DS / BlazeDS.

  • http://www.bit-101.com Keith Peters

    dzedward, use Flex Builder, FDT, or Flash Develop for a month. Then go back to coding in the Flash IDE and see if you still think it’s a great editor.

  • http://www.bit-101.com Keith Peters

    The point about Flex and Flash is that Flex IS Flash. It’s really nothing more than a whole truckload of classes that create components and an application framework. Yes, it also has mxml, but an mxml file just compiles down into one or more AS3 classes. There’s nothing else magical about Flex that makes it “not Flash” other than the fact that a lot of people use it and it has it’s own name and a lot of marketing around it.

    Someone else could come up with another framework and component set that did similar things. They might even make a better one than Adobe made. Matching the functionality of mxml would be a bit more complex but could be done. Runtime parsing of an xml file would be easier if you really needed to do the whole markup thing. In fact, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before a decent alternative to Flex rises up out of the OS Flash environment. Get working, guys!

  • http://www.flashapi.org/ Pascal ECHEMANN

    Well keith, I’m trying my best to publish my own Flash API (SPAS 3.0) for the end of the week: http://www.flashapi.org/spas3.html

    By this way, I hope it will grow up and be more stable after a few time, to really become “decent alternative to Flex”.

    You can get more info on my blog:
    http://www.flashapi.org/blog/
    (built on the top of SPAS 3.0 API, lol)

    At the end, the project will be open source, but alpha and beta versions are free to use for commercial* projects (*even if these versions are not candidate releases yet).

    Personally, Adobe go exactly in the direction I tihnk predict for 2 years, so I’m absolutely not surprised by this kind of buzz around Flex and the Flash Plateform.

    Cheers

  • http://www.iedesign.co.uk Tom Haskell

    I think it’s great that Adobe have brought back the Flash Platform to get around this exact confusion over what the difference between Flash and Flex is. For anyone who is still confused, I’ve written a bit of an explanation over on our blog: http://www.iedesign.co.uk/blog/what-is-flex/

    @dzedward: Frankly I’m impressed that you’ve been able to build apps in the Flash IDE. Don’t get me wrong, it’s what I started with and it still has its place (in animation and for those who aren’t hard-core developers), but there are a lot of basic features that are missing for a development IDE.

    @Tink: “Flash Designer, Flash Developer & Flash Catalyst, all creating content for the Flash Player, all part of the Flash Platform, enabling Adobe to then sell a Flash Suite.” – I think that’s a brilliant idea, would really clear up some of the confusion, and would probably allow Adobe to make even more cash in the process!