Dynamic Flash MX, out of reach for the small developer?
Peter Elst
ColdFusion forward but I think they do realise that they can't easily have
us stubern developers change scripting language just like that.
If you look at the preview release of Dreamweaver MX you clearly see that
Macromedia is creating a very open structure for development (ASP, PHP, JSP,
CFM). I think the same thing is going to happen with Flash for scripting
languages besides ColdFusion, if Macromedia isn't going to do so someone
else definately will.
If you look at what you now can do with Flash MX without any need for heavy
serverside applications, those are all things you would have bought
Generator for a few years back (before SWF became an open format and cheaper
alternatives started to arise). If you combine Flash MX with any serverside
language you can do even more than what Generator could, now even extensions
are easily written in Flash MX. You definately don't need to be a nuclear
scientist to write a Flash component which I found to be very difficult to
do in Generator.
Remember Macromedia merging with Allaire ? I think it has produced a winning
combination, and even I, who a few years back was an avid critic and one of
the first to frown upon ColdFusion as a scripting language am actually
looking a bit closer to the technology which has seemed to leap lightyears
ahead it's previous releases. Ofcourse I'm still my usual PHP-loving self,
but the mere fact that I am looking into ColdFusion seems to indicate to me
that it has definate potential.
I'll give it a few more months before I start panicing :)
Regards,
Peter
"VIM" <webfor...@macromedia.com> schreef in bericht
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> I'm a little concerned with the direction that Flash MX/ColdFusion MX is
taking as far as dynamic content goes.
>
> With the demise of Generator and the SWT format the tools that many small
developers now use for dynamic Flash content (Turbine, SwiftGen) are in a
lurch if the want to take advantage of Flash 6 features. It appears that
server side content is being made inseparable from ColdFusion. While the
announcement that these technologies will be made available on "major
application servers" is meant to be good news, so far things don't look so
good. ColdFusion MX for WebSphere and ColdFusion MX for Sun ONE aren't
exactly the love letters to developers that the press releases would have us
believe.
>
> What if you're a developer that doesn't have $3000.00-$5000.00 per CPU?
What if you don't like to develop with ColdFusion or (heaven forbid) you use
a "minor" application development envronment like Tomcat or PHP? At this
point it looks like you're stuck with Flash 5.
>
> Macromedia has proven in the past that they listen to the development
community, so I'm holding off judgement until I have seen the "Flash MX
Application Development Kit" which is supposed to help Generator/SWT users
transition to the unnamed forthcoming server technology. I really hope that
MM hasn't decided to abandon independent small to medium sized developers.
>
> Is anyone else worried?
>
>
Gil Fewster
MX is going to offer some interesting new approaches to dynamic Flash
applications, but I can't see any evidence within Flash MX itself that
technologies such as ASP/PHP/JSP are being excluded.
I think (hope) what will happen is that Macromedia will begin to offer a lot
of template-style solutions for developers who want to go with MM products
all the way, taking full advantage of the ability to tightly integrate
products which all come from the same family, and this is going to make
dyanmic content development faster and easier, especially for people with
less than heroic programming skills.
But I doubt that MM will abandon support for other server-side technologies
at the same time. This would be an undeniably foolish move, purely from a
financial perspective -- why turn away all those ASP and PHP programmers
needlessly, especially given the huge popularity of those platforms? One of
the strengths of the swf format and Flash as a development platform is that
it can be integrated easily and effectively with so many key web development
technologies, so programmers don't need to learn a whole new set of back-end
tools in order to develop a dyanamic Flash-driven web site -- they just dive
straight in with their language of choice.
Given that Macromedia is clearly intending to further push for flash as a
dyanmic content delivery tool, it would seem a backward step if they start
reducing the server-side technologies it can work with. I think that the
new approach will keep all the doors open, but allow for a more streamlined
development process if you go with a completely Macromedia toolkit.
Cheers,
Gil Fewster
www.flamingmongrel.net
John Dowdell
technologies have hit the table yet, but you've identified the core
trends: interoperate with various technologies, use openly documented
protocols, yet try to add additional efficiencies with the MX family.
That's pretty much all I can say at the moment, but I'll be glad when
more info gets published too.
jd
--
John Dowdell, Macromedia Developer Support, San Francisco
(Don't get caught by spam filters -- keep replies on-list!)
Technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/
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Daily tech diary: http://jdmx.blogspot.com/
Gil Fewster
Cold Fusion, and Fireworks MX?
Go on, youknow you want to!
Cheers,
Gil Fewster
www.flamingmongrel.net
Peter Elst
Ultradev, which is now (I assume) replaced by Dreamweaver MX.
ColdFusion MX is introducing Flash Remoting as a bridge between front-end
and back-end. I think it is obvious that Flash itself will not contain
database connection features in the near future, it will make the player
filesize a lot larger. Besides if you want Filesystem access on the server
you would need some kind of server application running on there that enables
Flash to read/write.
Regards,
Peter
"leroyHenry" <webfor...@macromedia.com> schreef in bericht
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> why haven't you ported drumbeat into flash? it seems like the next logical
step.
>
>
Peter Elst
connectivity in Flash would require quite a large increase in filesize for
the player and some serverside application to avoid firewall and other
problems.
It's just my personal thoughts on the subject, if anyone of the MM support
team has some comments on this I would be glad to hear :-)
Regards,
Peter
"leroyHenry" <webfor...@macromedia.com> schreef in bericht
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> i don't think you understood mt remark. Macromedia bought Drumbeat, ported
it to Dreamweaver, and UltraDev was born. Currently, as I understand it, to
use dynamic content in Flash you need to build a page in UltraDev and port
it to your Flashh app minus the html. I would like to connect to the
database from within the Flash API. Drumbeat inside of Flash.
>
>
Gil Fewster
build a page in UltraDev >>and port it to your Flashh app minus the html
Not at all. You don't need Ultradev to make a dynamic flash site anymore
then you need Dreamweaver to make an HTML page. Ultradev is a tool which
makes it easier, but it's not essential. If you want to write all of your
HTML and ASP code in notepad, you're perfectly able to do so.
Flash doesn't care what generated the ASP/PHP/CGI/JSP/etc page -- as long as
your script outputs the data into structure that you can work with within
your flash movie (basically name and value pairs of varaibles) then you're
off and running.
Cheers,
Gil Fewster
www.flamingmongrel.net
leroyHenry
Peter Elst
see how is do database connectivity in the authoring environment and pull
data in ... put it wouldn't remain dynamic, it will just become static text
that gets compiled in the SWF.
That's something like a offline Macromedia Generator type SWF converter
thingie ... personally don't see much of a practical use for it, but someone
might think differently :)
Regards,
Peter
"leroyHenry" <webfor...@macromedia.com> schreef in bericht
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