Our Blog

MAX 2005

It was a great conference, more than 3000 developers together with Flex Flex Flex. We want to say goodbye to all the people we met at MAX, and we hope to see you all again in the next conference. We finally met Mike Nimer, the person behind the cfforms. He is a very nice person. Thanks Mike ;) We also met a lot of people that we only knew by their blog.

The conference overall was good, with a lot of sessions about Flex and great new stuff. I feel that something big is in the oven. This is the beginning of new platform that has a strong foundation and can rule the Web 2.0 (Ajax, can you hear?). It's something that we've been expecting long time and it finally arrives.

So expect more Flex examples from us and less cfforms. We'll be making a slow transition from cfform to Flex 2.0 :) It will be a very smooth ride.

Nahuel Foronda

Nahuel Foronda

14 Comments

  1. dave

    dave

    thats cool but until flex becomes affordable to everyone (the every day programmers) it isn't really an option and really just about everyone comes here for the great cfform stuff, they will surely be missed :(
  2. Michael White

    Michael White

    I'm with Dave... Can't afford Flex, Need to make the most of CFMX7. Coldfusion is the General purpose tool that pulls flash and flex subsets into a single development environment and that's what I like. I would prefer to learn these other technologies as they pertain to Coldfusion. so there's my two cents. You practically single-handedly created the Boom in Coldfusion/Flash Forms and I'll always thank you for that no matter what the future holds. Life is short and each of us has to follow their own path to greatness. Go on and inspire the world!
  3. João Fernandes

    João Fernandes

    With the Flex 2.0 Launch, Flex will be affordable to everyone. CFForm are great and ASFUSION has showed us how much they are but in a near future, who'll need CFForm?
  4. Neil Bailey

    Neil Bailey

    Hello!!!! Has everyone been walking around with their head up their @**?? MY boss is the cheapest SOB in the WORLD, but w/ Flex 2.0, the cost has been cut by......frig it, a LOT! So, if you can afford a CF server - and if you're using CFForms, chances are you HAVE a cf server - you can afford Flex.

    Nahuel, this is perfect timing as far as I am concerned. I feel I have taken CFForms as far as I can - or perhaps as far as I want to? - and I am making the slow, leisurely transition to Flex 2 my own self - as I suspect are a good amount of other CF developers.

    I am literally, truly shocked that your faithful followers seem to have lost faith so quickly. You led us from the wilderness, the darkness into the light...ok, corny, but you have taught a BUNCH of stuff to a LOT of people who may not have figured it out on their own, myself included. Thank you.
  5. Jason

    Jason

    Glad to hear that Nahuel,

    I've been doing some reading in labs.macromedia.com, do you know any other sources for flex 2?

    Before the Flex 2, people are worried about the framework. Now that Flex Framework 2 give me more clearer picture but long term of time investment for Flex is my biggest concern.

    Flex builder 2 only supported on windows platform!
    How about a development environment which is non-windows platform?

    Any plan/changes from MM regarding the Flex 2 Licensing? Especially the "hosting" License?

    Thanks
  6. Rick Smith

    Rick Smith

    Regardless of cost, I've never been impressed by Flex and Flex 2 still poses no forseeable advantages. Unfortunately, I'm afraid Flex is going to be another one of Macromedia's bust applications, similar Central (remember how central was going to simplify all of our lives? Yet I've never spoken to a Central developer let alone ANYONE who's even heard of Central. The same theory applies to Flex). No one is adopting Flex, which is obviously why Macromedia has dropped the price. Here's the problem Flex faces, it's under-documented (to date only one single book has been published on the topic) and no developer (including myself) wants to take the time to learn it, let alone can possibly find a job where an employer is willing to pay a developer to learn AND implement it into a logical infrastructure. AS3 and Flash 8.5/9... yes; Flex... who cares. Like Central, although dang cool, it's just another Macromedia toy.

    Maybe Flex is here to stay, but it's going to take a lot more than impressing a bunch of flash geeks (as much as I love being one myself) at a conference how wonderful it is to get it off the ground.

    Fortunately for us, ColdFusion is here to stay. ColdFusion is well documented, easy to learn and can be easily considered by companies as a viable alternative/addition to their business internet/intranet capabilities. Flash Forms in CF7 has extended this (not Flex). ASfusion is a CFFORM resource. Other than a feature from time to time, I can't see where Flex fits into the picture amongst the demographic of visitors for this site (CFFORM ColdFusion 7 users), or do I have a misunderstanding who actually visits this site and what knowledge this site offers?
  7. Neil Bailey

    Neil Bailey

    Rick,

    I think that not only are your comments arrogant, but rather rude as well. Who are YOU to say that ASFusion is a CFFORM resource? Are you a PAYING member? If Nahuel and Laura decided tomorrow to turn their blog into a study of the various types of window sashes, who the hell are YOU to question what they post, how they post it, or WHY?? If you're interested, you'll continue reading, if not, you'll go somewhere else.

    Whether Flex is the real deal or not, as far as this conversation (for lack of a better word) is concerned is irrelevant. This, as far as I am concerned, is about a blogger to write about whatever the hell they want to write about. Those who can keep up, will, those who can't will go somewhere else. However, I don't feel ANYONE has the right to complain.

    As with radio/television, don't write the FCC, just change the friggin station........
  8. Rick Smith

    Rick Smith

    It was not my intention for my comments to be rude or arrogant (and after rereading what I wrote, I really don't think my comments are rude or arrogant.. they're just comments). It seems as though I offended you in some way or form and for that I am sorry. Of course whoever owns the site is willing to do whatever they want with the site, but changing its content would be like Ben Forta primarily blogging about PHP or .NET or Bill Gates primarily blogging on Linux... just doesn't make sense really, which was the point of my comments. Again, I apologiz if what I wrote offended anyone.
  9. Sean Corfield

    Sean Corfield

    The Flex 2 product line brings ActionsScript 3 - optional strong typing and full OO support, Flex Builder 2 - an Eclipse-based IDE and Flash Player 8.5 - a much faster, more robust player - for less than $1,000, with the ability to create SWFs for deployment anywhere (including shared hosts since no server component is needed for basic WebService calls).

    This will open up the Flash market to millions of developers across the board. I expect to see a lot of ColdFusion developers adopt Flex Builder 2 to create great user interfaces with ColdFusion back ends. I expect to see Java and .NET developers adopt Flex Builder 2 as well.

    I think it's great that Nahuel and Laura are excited by Flex. I think Flex is very relevant to ColdFusion developers (in the same way that I think frameworks are very relevant to ColdFusion developers) so it's seems like a win-win situation that AS Fusion will also be covering Flex from now on!
  10. Steve Walker

    Steve Walker

    Flex 2 is the future of MacDobe. If you weren't at MAX 2005 and didn't have an opportunity to see the performance improvements coming in FlashPlayer 8.5 and ActionScript 3 you are in for an amazing revelation. The player is at least 10x faster and it's still an alpha.

    I am excited about the future of Flex, but it is still just the presentation tier, Coldfusion is still needed as the middle tier. Macromedia has already created a connector to easily interface CF with Flex2. Go to labs.macromedia.com to learn and play.

    The retail proce for the "standard" version of Flex 2 is supposed to be $995, but once most employers see the potential, it will be a miniscule cost.

    As for the demise of Central, it is true...sort of. During MAX they announced a new project, code named "Apollo", that sounds just like Central only better.

    Like many other I have come to rely on the folks at ASFusion for their insights into the extended world of cfforms and I would like to say "thank you". Flex2 is better, so I will look forward to any more knowledge I can glean from your expertise.
  11. Mark Fuqua

    Mark Fuqua

    Rick,

    I am not 100% sure, but I think CFforms are a small limited subset of Flex 1.5.

    Flex is going to be huge, and macromedia has decided to give Coldfusion developers a big head start with the Flex-Coldfusion bridge.

    I'm sure looking forward to it.

    Mark

  12. Nahuel

    Hi all,
    I made a post with my response to this heated debate:
    http://www.asfusion.com/blog/entry/why-should-a-coldfusion-developer-care
  13. Geof Harries

    Geof Harries

    The showstopper problem that I run into with Flex is that it uses Flash as its presentation layer. A big part of our app development business is with the territorial government who don't allow the Flash Player to be installed on any of their networked machines. We get around this by using AJAX and XHTML/CSS of course. It'd be fantastic if Macromedia could provide a work-around in this regard.
  14. John Dowdell

    John Dowdell

    Geoff, is that in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada?

    If so, might this search be used as a convincer of how many governments not only tolerate, but *rely*, on this transparent local rich-interactivity layer?
    http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Agov+filetype%3Aswf

    jd/mm