It's GO time

[Ben Clinkinbeard]

OK everyone, Adobe said on today's open iteration call that they plan
to make a decision regarding the Fx prefixes by the end of this week.
We need to speak up immediately. We are now asking everyone in the
group to blog against the prefix as soon as possible, preferably
within the next 36 hours. We're hoping that a consolidated push can
get us over the hump.

Blogging against the prefix is the important part, so make whatever
arguments you personally find valid and compelling in your blog post.
We know Adobe's biggest concerns are around the approachability of
Flex to new developers and whether or not namespaces will be a point
of confusion, so if you can address that aspect all the better. The
Adobe forums thread is a good way to see their concerns as well.

Secondary things you can include are announcements of this group, your
membership in it, and maybe a membership listing. You can point people
to our prefix resolution recommendation page if you want but be sure
to point out it is a work in progress.

That's it. Now is the time to speak up. I have trimmed the membership
list to only people who have posted or expressed an interest in
remaining a member. I did this so as not to attach anyone's name to
this that may not agree with what we've compiled.

MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

[Tom Chiverton]

2009/2/10 Ben Clinkinbeard <ben.clin...@gmail.com>:

> We need to speak up immediately. We are now asking everyone in the
> group to blog against the prefix as soon as possible, preferably
> within the next 36 hours. We're hoping that a consolidated push can
> get us over the hump.

Typing now :-)
Tweeting too.

> That's it. Now is the time to speak up. I have trimmed the membership

Are you also going to post 'on behalf of SDk Commitee' to the forum thread ?

--
Tom

[Tom Chiverton]

Blogged.

[Tom Chiverton]

I hit up FlexCoders too.

--
Tom

[Darron Schall]

I'm still collecting my thoughts here, but I'll try to post something today or tomorrow.  My post is going to be something related to the following topic...

I'm in the boat of actually having USED the Flex 4 SDK to build an application.  I've been working on a personal project for quite some time with Flex 4, and to be honest, it's a real PITA knowing where the Spark/Halo component line is. I'm actually having a really hard time developing this and have more than once thought about going back to Flex 3 with Degrafa for skinning.  But, I'm forcing myself to use the new component model, FXG, and using a Flash Catalyst workflow.

I *love* the new component model, and I want to use Spark components everywhere I can.. but I don't know the names.  Not everything begins with Fx - Group is a good example.  It's just really hard to work with right now (this coming from a seasoned Flex veteran).  Splitting things out into namespaces, having FlexBuilder only show me the spark components, and then explicitly pulling in the Halo components that haven't been ported yet would, in my opinion, make Flex 4 actually usable.  As it stands, I can't recommend using Flex 4 to anyone since it's such a nightmare right now.

Have any of you tried using Flex 4 to build an application with?  Do you find yourself running into the same types of problems?

For the Halo components that won't be able to be ported to Sparl in the time for release - can we get a list of those so maybe the community can step up here with contributions?  I know some of the "harder" components like DataGrid won't make the cut, but I'm up for trying to tackel that on my own.  I'm pretty sure everyone on this list wouldn't mind that kind of challenge either.

-d

[Tom Ortega]

I have to agree with Darron on the stepping up and helping out part. I
know I couldn't tackle building a new DataGrid on my own, so I didn't
want to suggest it. But since Darron did, I'll second his suggestion.

I can help on smaller scale components and/or help out ASDoc'ing some
of the bigger stuff.

Thanks,
Tom Ortega
360Conferences, Inc.
cell: 951.212.9686 | twitter/skype: lordbron
lordbron.wordpress.com | www.OurStartupStory.com |
www.360conferences.com | www.360flex.com | www.360iDev.com

[Ryan Campbell]

I've actually been thinking about building a Flex 4 DataGrid component myself since I got off to a pretty good start with OpenFlux's DataGrid/TreeDataGrid (examples on www.bobjim.com). I'm just waiting for a public beta of Flex Builder 4 and then I'd definitely help out with that effort.

[Ben Clinkinbeard]

So everybody knows I am not just being a hypocrite, I will actually not be blogging this issue after all. I am not quite ready to fully explain, but suffice to say I am taking some time to reconsider my role/activities in the Flex community and that means laying low for a while. I am still pulling for a good outcome but will be keeping my lips zipped for now.

Catch you on the flip side.

Ben

[Tony Hillerson]

Here's my take. Lot's of good technical discussion here already, so I
stick to a point that's important to me.

http://thillerson.blogspot.com/2009/02/dear-flex-aesthetics-matter.html

Good luck to us all.

[Simeon Bateman]

Like Darron, I also have been using the flex 4 code base to build
applications. I have a personal AIR project that I have been building
out using the skinning and such. And i have to say that I also *LOVE*
the new component model. I think the separation of the skins from the
implementation code is amazingly flexible. I am not a visual person.
I have probably never created a truly custom UI component in Flex >
4. But I have a couple components in my application that start by
extending FxComponent and adding behaviors and skins. I can not say
enough about how great that works.

However as Matt said, the tools are not there yet. And that is good
and bad for me. I don't code in flex builder 100%. I use textmate,
emacs, FDT, whatever. So having tools that cover up the/fix the issue
is really a minor issue for me. Having flex builder not actually
support namespaces right now is a pain, but on the whole is of little
importance. I have yet to use anything that Flash Catalyst output
without spending half an hour stripping out all the extra namespace
junk and setting up parameters for colors and such.

So my concerns over the Fx prefix do actually come from writing real
applications, regardless of the tooling involved. And I have also
built applications using my hacked flex that has the prefix problems
fixed. The tooling problem is the same in both cases, but I prefer
using namespaces to fix the problem.

I feel like you guys get more than my 2 cents on this, but it is what
it is.

sim

[Ben Stucki]

http://blog.benstucki.net/?p=53  

Remember, every time you prefix God kills a kitten.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:10 PM, RJ Owen <RJ....@effectiveui.com> wrote:

When/if you blog, could you reply to all of us with a link to your post?  I'd like to link to your posts when I get mine out there.

RJ Owen

Senior Developer @ EffectiveUI / 303.204.2779
www.effectiveui.com

---

From: Ben Clinkinbeard <ben.clin...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:08:27 -0700
To: Tony Hillerson <tony.hi...@gmail.com>, <malab...@gmail.com>, <darron...@gmail.com>, <tom.ch...@gmail.com>, <tom.o...@gmail.com>, <douglas...@gmail.com>, <twgon...@gmail.com>, Justin Reidy <jmr...@gmail.com>, <adamf...@gmail.com>, <simba...@gmail.com>, <bens...@gmail.com>, <brian.j...@gmail.com>, <do...@dougmccune.com>, RJ Owen <rj....@effectiveui.com>, <sdo...@gmail.com>, <ry...@safaricreative.com>, <David....@universalmind.com>
Subject: It's GO time

*** Apologies for spamming everyone's email with this but I wanted to make sure even members who have list notifications turned off see this ***

[Brian Holmes]

http://smashedapples.com/blog/2009/2/12/-1-for-the-fx-prefix.html

I'm gonna stay out of the kitten killing business

[Ben Clinkinbeard]

Stucki convinced me to post after all. http://www.returnundefined.com/2009/02/fx-prefix-help-adobe-make-the-right-decision

Of course as soon as I published I see that it looks like a decision has been made. Hoping Matt's smiley means we won but who knows... guess we all will tomorrow. :)

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.59b7cdf0/59