In Episode 23 we chat with Adam Flater and Rob Rusher about some very controversial topics. Adam points out James’ wishful thinking when we discuss what defines something being a “Flex application”. Jon gets the award for best quote of the episode when we discuss Flex and its community. Things get fun as we discuss Silverlight and Flex differences. As we wrap up Jon rates the wonderful scotch we were drinking an 8 out of 10.
At CodeMash 2009 I was able to participate in a panel discussion about Rich Internet Applications, Flex, Silverlight, and Ajax. The panel was moderated by Richard and Carl from the .NET Rocks! podcast. Also on the panel was Josh Holmes and Jesse Liberty from Microsoft and Leon Gersing. It was a fun panel - especially since we enjoyed some fine whiskey during it! But also because it’s great to see how we all have common goals - we all want software to be better no matter what the underlying technology is.
At the JAOO conference in Aarhus, Denmark I was able to co-present with Josh Holmes from Microsoft about the Architecture of RIA. This presentation was technology agnostic so we didn’t talk about specific implementations using platforms like Flex / Flash or Silverlight. Josh has posted the presentation slides and detailed notes on his blog:
Check it out and let us know what you think.
It’s hard to believe that 2007 is almost over. It’s been an amazing year! Thanks for reading and contributing. I’m looking forward to another great year in 2008. And it all begins when I hit the road the second week of January for CodeMash 2008. I went to CodeMash last year and really enjoyed the conference, especially the water slides. :) I’ll be speaking again at CodeMash 2008 about Adobe AIR and Flex.
The more software experiences become like the natural world the more users are pleased with those experiences. One of the most powerful, understandable, and universal concepts in computing is the idea of a desktop containing files and folders. Users embraced this metaphor in their software because it modeled their natural world experience.
There is a paradigm shift underway. In this shift, developers are creating user interfaces which more closely model the natural world. Since 2002, the term used to describe these types of software applications is “Rich Internet Applications”, or RIAs. Technologies like Ajax, Flex, Silverlight, Adobe AIR, and JavaFX are growing in popularity as this shift to RIAs gains momentum.
InfoQ recently published an interview with me about Flex 3 and Silverlight. In the interview I talked about what I see are some of the differences between Flex and Silverlight. After reading my words again I realized that they may come across as critical of Silverlight. I don’t at all intend them to be taken that way. Silverlight is helping to bring the idea of richer and better user interfaces to the masses. This vision is something I believe in and I’m glad that Microsoft and Sun (with JavaFX) have all now embraced the RIA vision and are making significant investments to make it reality. Silverlight and JavaFX, have validated the programming and deployment models which Flex uses. The combination of things like a declarative language, a procedural language, cross-platform bytecode, a high performance VM, vector graphics, and a web browser plugin have been the foundation of Flex based RIAs since 2004. Silverlight and JavaFX have validated that this is the best way to build a successful RIA platform. So please don’t read my comments on Silverlight and JavaFX as being critical. I’m excited that Microsoft and Sun now believe in the RIA vision. But I’m also glad that I get to evangelize the RIA solution which is proven and available today.