"TechPoint" - The techie edge

One of the all time most visited links in my blog is: Flex Vs Ajax - Which one is better and why? Interesting comparison though I don't provide an answer to the question since both flex and ajax have their own advantages and are good at them. And so I thought I'll revisit on this topic today.

One of the biggest flex turn offs for me is the way in which adobe promotes it. Pathetic! Since flex is a product of adobe, I've visited adobe.com many times to see what they are doing with flex, but I've always been disappointed because most part of their website still is in web 1.0; no flex nor ajax! Look at these pages: 1) registration page 2) forgot password . Traditional!

Adobe did do a good job at converting their website to coldfusion soon after the acquisition of macromedia. They believe in their product! Wait! Really? Do you think so? Because I don't!!!

I did hop in to a fairly decent adobe site, the adobe store. Looks good! The page is in coldfusion and pretty impressive. Do they have a page that is done in flex? (note that the extension for flex is .mxml). They could have done the adobe store in flex at least to showcase the power of flex. For example, the drag and drop shopping cart and all that cinematic stuff that can be done using flex.

Not seeing much of their own products in their website makes me think that they don't believe in their products or that they are planning on discontinuing some of their products.

Take Microsoft for example, their website serves as a good example of their products. Also take a look at http://expo.live.com/ Totally .Net Ajax!!!

For those of you who love the user experience provided by Ajax and Flex and are debating on pros and cons of the two, here is an open source alternative which may be of great interest.

OpenLaszlo is a Web 2.0 open-source alternative to Flex and sometimes Ajax (even though it is heavily based on the Ajax platform). It is a very cost effective approach to building high end, powerful, cinematic web applications. It can be developed by using just XML and JavaScript. OpenLaszlo can be deployed from any HTTP Web server in SOLO mode, or from a J2EE application server or Java servlet container running the OpenLaszlo Server under Linux, UNIX, Windows or Mac OS X. The output is displayed in any Web browser enabled with the Flash 6 Player or above. And above all it is absolutely free!

Currently, OpenLaszlo can deploy applications running Flash, and DHTML support is expected by the end of 2006. OpenLaszlo is being extended to give developers the option to run applications using Flash or DHTML, an open standard built into most browsers. Future extensions include embedded runtimes in consumer devices, such as mobile phones and TV set-tops.

OpenLaszlo LZX is a declarative XML markup language with embedded JavaScript designed expressly for advanced Web applications. Its syntax is familiar to developers experienced with JavaScript, HTML and XML, and provides advanced language features such as animation, layout, drawing, data binding, and server communication (persistent connections, SOAP, XML-RPC and XMLHttpRequest) to create an extraordinarily rich user experience.

OpenLaszlo "Legals"

"Legals" is an OpenLaszlo project to provide a single application environment that supports multiple deployment runtimes. OpenLaszlo 3.x supports Flash 7 and 8 now, but Legals will extend that reach to include DHTML as well as Flash 9.

Demos

A list of rich internet applications designed using Open Laszlo is available here which includes amazon store, calendar, weather and many more.

More on OpenLaszlo:

Learn OpenLaszlo in 10 minutes
Download OpenLaszlo
OpenLaszlo Project Blog
OpenLaszlo Rails plug-in

Although I am very intrigued by this technology, I have not tried my hands on OpenLaszlo yet. I am interested in knowing about experiences from those who have developed applications using OpenLaszlo and their take on it. Please comment below.

Related:

Flex Vs Ajax - Which one is better and why?
Ajax - the new web trend?

Ajax and Flex are both amazingly good technologies. Programmers often argue about one technology being superior to the other. Both have their pros and cons.
I tried to compile a list of websites that talk about likes and dislikes for the two technologies, probably the best resources I could find on the internet on this.

• Adobe's Flex platform now better positioned against AJAX
  "Adobe says Flex offers capabilities not available in AJAX, such as powerful data management capabilities and rich media and graphics"- read


• Top Ten Reasons AJAX is Here to Stay
  "It's an understatement to say that AJAX is hot right now. There's a lot of hype; no one can argue that. It went from a geek buzzword in February to being profiled on CNN in October" - read


• Flex and Ajax better together James Ward, Technical Evangelist for flex speaks on how they are better together (audio/breeze presentaion) - link (recommended)


• Weighing the alternatives
  "Why is Ajax getting so much attention when there are so many alternative technologies? Something about Ajax raises it above the rest" - read (recommended)
  


• 10 Reasons We Love Flex 2
  "We all know that AJAX gets all the buzz these days. We do plenty of AJAX work here at Arc90. But we’re also loving Flex 2. Here are 10 reasons why" - read


• Flex - Why Bother ?
  "The reason I never used flash heavily in the front end is because I felt: 1) User not as likely to support it vs JS/HTML/CSS 2) Takes a little longer to load 3) Right click options (open new window, open new tab) are replaced by ?about flash?" - read


• Flex vs Ajax (Hint: Ajax is Better!) Pete Cashmore makes precise comparison of the two technologies - read (recommended)


• Flex vs. AJAX
  "I’ll give you a list of what I think are important strengths and weaknesses of the two, but keep in mind, I am happily on the fence when it comes to deciding between them, and I’ll tell you why in a bit." - read

Your opinion on this will be of great help to this article, please comment below. If you have other interesting links please mention it in your comment.