CODEWITHSUNDEEP
apache-flexactionscript-3
Ryan
Ryan

Reputation: 6055

What incentives are there for using Flex over plain AS3?

I'm a flash programmer and the only incentive I have to use Flex, as opposed to plain AS3, is to more easily get clients - not too great of an incentive in my eyes.

Can someone give an example application where I'd be better off using Flex instead of plain AS3? Also, what general incentives are there for using Flex?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 245

Answers (3)

JeffryHouser
JeffryHouser

Reputation: 39408

I think benefits of Flex over straight ActionScript:

1) A Default Component Set: If you're building an application that needs Comboboxes, lists, and DataGrids; then Flex is a great choice. These are a bunch of components designed to work together and have a consistent API.

2) A Component Framework: The Flex Framework includes a framework for building new components, laying out those components, styling those components, and managing the application's visual state. If you need this, you'll probably save a lot of time using an existing one over creating your own.

3) Tooling: Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst, built specifically for building Flex applications. The proper tooling can provide significant time savings with many projects. The Flex Profiler and Flex Debugger are two great examples of things that have saved many countless hours in debugging and tuning Flex applications.

4) MXML MXML is a declarative languages, similar to HTML and is great for laying out your application quickly. Under the hood, MXML is turned into ActionScript by the Flex Compiler, and I once heard MXML described as an ActionScript code generation language. The declarative approach makes layout easier.

5) Open Source: Flex is open source, so you have all of the source code to the Flex Framework, the Flex Compiler, and others.

6) Community Support: There are tons of Flex Components extending the Flex Framework, there are other frameworks for MVC and Dependency Injenction. There are unit testing frameworks and tools to automate the testing of your applications UI. If you need these things, they are there for you.

There are some things to think about. Not all may apply in your specific case; and there may be equally valid reasons not to choose Flex (such as performance). I personally think "job/contract/employment" prospects is a very compelling reason to learn something, but on such things I tend to be a capitalist.

Upvotes: 6

Rudi
Rudi

Reputation: 164

Flex provides you with a robust application and layout framework. So I would probably use Flex if:

  • your app uses many standard controls
  • you're creating an application with forms
  • your application has many pages with varying layouts
  • your app requires validation on forms
  • your app requires re-skinning
  • your app has datagrids in it
  • you want to use an MVC framework that requires it such as Mate

I would probably use flash if:

  • you are creating an app that has heaps of strong complex animation and limited functionality
  • you are extremely concerned about bandwidth
  • you are creating ad banners

Remember Flex is a subset of Flash and you can do pretty much everything in Flex that you can do in Flash except for timeline animation.

Upvotes: 2

Kevin Gallahan
Kevin Gallahan

Reputation: 1664

Tour de Flex - Lots of examples

Class documentation - Full class listing

If none of those examples look useful and you think you have no use for any of the classes (at least in the mx and spark packages), then by all means, don't use Flex.

Upvotes: 0

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