HTML equivalent for Flex

Question

I am faced with a unique problem and probably need some external help and advice.

In my current company, I am set to develop a product that in broad terms is something similar to say Photoshop or Flash ( much much simpler than that.. But that should give us an idea! ).

Now I can develop both in JS/ HTML and AS3 / Flex.

Given the current scenario which would be the best environment to develop this app? By the way this app will be deployed only internally currently and will not be opened to our clients until say for another year. Even if we do the number of people who will use this app wont exceed 100 (That's over estimating under the current situation, but still..).

I am quite comfortable working with flex and to me Flex seems like a good way to approach this. But the popular vote has been to produce this with HTML 5, since apparently "Flash is dead" or dying.

Now.. If I am going to be using HTML in this scenario, which framework do I use so that I dont have to build all the UI elements again?

Any help or advice in this regard would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I have finally decided to go with GWT since it is the next closest thing I can find.

I am currently evaluating GWT and Dojo and seemingly it provides me with a good IDE support ( since its java ) and apparently it supports all the new HTML 5 stack. More importantly it can work with other javascript frameworks where necessary ( like jquery? ). Apart from all this it is going to do some really cool code optimization and compression that will supposedly improve performance over direct hand written code.

Answer 2

Fear not, use Flex you should.

It's an application for internal use, not the internet. In that case why would you care about it's "indexability", been more cross-platform? I work within a bank, yes the $$$ kind, and there every computer has at least flash 9, all I have to care about is compiling my flex apps to flash 9.0.0.

It seams that you are more comfortable with Flex, use it.

Answer 3

I've been developing Flex applications for several years now while also experimenting with HTML5 since its inception. The correct answer to your question is a complex one and really it depends on YOUR comfort level on which route to take. That being said, here's my take...

"Flash is dead" is the biggest lie in the industry. Flash is a multi-billion dollar industry with tremendous momentum. There's a reason why game companies like Zynga choose Flash- it's got the horse-power and language features to drive an immersive experience.

HOWEVER, a better saying is "flex is dead". In my book, there's no reasons today to choose Flex over HTML5 for interactive applications. Flex is vastly slower in performance versus HTML5 (I don't have benchmarks but I know how Flex works under-the-hood). Google can index information in your application way better if it's HTML5. I would also argue that HTML5/js has way more open-source components available to use than Flex. This being said, choosing Flex to develop your application won't mean project failure... it's just not as good on paper than the alternative.

For working in HTML5, I would HIGHLY suggest leaning CoffeeScript (coffeescript.org). Javascript is a horribly broken language that have been further mutilated by a standards committee that can't make up their minds. CoffeeScript eases this pain by providing an "idealist" perspective on where Javascript should have evolved to. The language simple converts your app into a compressed library of javascript for use on the web.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

The "Flash is dying" debate has been around for quite some years now, but it's still around and kicking:) Back on topic. In my opinion, for medium to large scale applications, especially internal ones, Flex is a good choice, due to its capabilities. However, you should be willing to accept some trade-offs regarding cross-platform performance. HTML5 is great if you're looking for cross-platform compliance, also it's easier to implement.

Basically it comes down to choosing power (Flex offers a wide range of ready-made components and controls) over convenience (HTML).

Have a great day.