About Flex

I have been in a couple of Flex projects, and I enjoyed using it for a number of reasons:

• It makes me more productive.
  
• It feels like an object oriented programming language Java style, rather than a bunch of helper functions.
• E4X (ECMAScript 4 XML) support. This feature, actually made XML manipulation super fun!
  
• It's easy to extend components to add additional functionality.
• Cross browser capability.
• Great documentation.
• Developer community keeps growing in size.
• Full CSS compatible.

For a developer with a Java background it becomes relatively easy to learn the language, since the syntax is very similar. Someone with a Javascript background may reuse existing knowledge (such as event propagation and handling, and CSS) to speed up the learning curve.

It may be because I have a background in Java and C++, but with Flex it feels more natural the way you create, extend or manipulate GUI objects in comparison with DOM manipulation with Javascript. I think this is mainly because HTML was thought mainly for document formatting, and not for creating RIAs.

I've ran into developers that are kind of reluctant to using Flex, and the reason is that they think its not an open source framework. The reality is that you can download the flex development kit (Flex SDK) for FREE and open sourcing the flash player is underway (Gnash); the IDE (FlexBuilder) is not free (although FlexBuilder for linux is), and it is a "must have" tool if you want to experience Flex at full power.

One of the reasons I feel Flex has not become that popular is because of its creator, Adobe. I think that Adobe Flash has a bad reputation between software developers, mainly because of its nature as a tool for graphic designers and not as a developer's platform, so programmers have not taken Adobe's efforts that seriously.

I hope that more and more software developers give Flex a chance, as I'm positive that they will enjoy it.