Adobe Compares Flex and Ajax
The comparison is coming from one of the horses mouths so take it with a grain a salt. That said I think Adobe tried not to step on some Ajax toes and didn’t make a strong enough case for Flex.
It’s a good basic overview but there are a couple of things I disagree with;
Why use ColdFusion for all the examples? A shrinking minority still use it but all the ColdFusion guys I know switched to either PHP or Rails over the last two years. I think it’s best to use PHP for comparisons like this as everyone has used it and can easily translate PHP to their favorite language.
Even though Adobe won’t admit it the reason they’re doing the comparison is to show off that Flex does Ajax like things. At the end of the article they break down the pros and cons of each, and if I were an Ajax developer I’m not sure I would be convinced to try Flex. Their pros for Flex are that it’s easier to develop with because of an IDE, which is true but there are Ajax IDEs now (which the author mentions later), the other is performance which ends up a tie because Ajax in a browser can handle large amounts of text better.
If I were writing it my pro Flex arguments would have included;
Consistent results No matter your browser Flash is Flash so Flex is Flex. Except for extremely rare circumstances your app is going to behave as expected.
Class Mapping Flash Remoting can map server side classes. Objects don’t need to be converted into XML first to go over the wire and they arrive as native objects ready to use (no need to parse and convert them back again).
Not only Remoting If you do want to consume XML Flex can do that too, or JSON, or REST services etc. If you already have some kind of service set up Flex could slide in and replace Ajax so you could make use of it’s…
Advanced Multimedia Features Video, Audio, and Vector Animation are things you just cant do with JavaScript, it’s the way content on the Intertubes are moving and a big reason to use Flex.
My pro Ajax arguments would include;
Frameworks The sheer number of Ajax frameworks dwarfs anything Flex has right now.
User Base The Flex community is growing but the JavaScript community is huge, you’re much more likely to find help getting started or solving a problem with Ajax.
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Well to clarify some things, Brian Rinaldi isn’t an employee of Adobe. He wrote this piece for the Adobe Edge online magazine so this isn’t Adobe’s stance. Brian’s a sharp guy and has some good points in his posting as there are specific instances where one technology is better suited than the other. You can see his blog here: http://www.remotesynthesis.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/2/6/Comparing-Adobe-Flex-and-Ajax-Development-Models
As for ColdFusion, well it’s obvious you’re not in tune with the CF community and the breadth of features included in CF8. It appeared to be a shrinking market for awhile but as of the latest release has seen quite a bit of resurgence in use. So don’t be so quick to dismiss it. Also, if a person can’t read and understand CFML, then there’s a serious lack of skills someplace as it’s as straightforward as any language out there.
Finally, the reason that Brian’s article uses CF is because he’s a CF expert.
Comment by Rey Bango — February 6, 2008 @ 10:39 am