James Ward asked me to file bugs for some of the issues we have been seeing with flex builder. I have posted them here in hopes you will go vote for them. This is only some of the many issues we are seeing using Flash Builder
Allow multiple instances of an AIR app to run at the same time. – There was a previous issue for this which was closed, so I created a new issue with more details.
Need to be able to navigate to classes and methods that implement an interface
Flex Server ate my bin! – This bug was already in the system, but looks like it is stuck on waiting on Info - Hopefully voting on it will get it moving.
After changing a project type from Flex Server I still can not set my output folder in Flex Build Path
Multiple runnable Air applications in the same project using locale causes tabs display name to be null
Should be able to navigate into script source with Go to Definition
Looking through the bug database it looks like several of the renaming bugs have recently been fixed, so maybe renaming will work in the latest release.
admin flex
I had a terrible bike accident that tuned into a major ordeal. I was coming down the hill way to fast on my bike when I fell off the trail in a patch of soft dirt and went flying over the handlebars. I was clipped into my pedals and did not come out in time to catch my self. I ended up taking the entire crash in the face (I am not sure what I did with my hands).
What happened after was worst then the accident itself. I was treated in two regional hospitals that almost killed me. The my life was saved at a third hospital. Sadly I found you can not trust our modern medical establishment. What I learned after is every nurse and doctor should know the ABC’s of keeping someone alive – airway, breathing and circulation. What is scary is two of the hospitals I visited almost killed me by ignore this basic principal. If you don’t mind gory pictures, there are more details and some pictures after the jump.
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admin personal
Having developed Flex for several years now I am getting really tired of Adobe’s lack of support for developers. I was hoping they would bring at least modest improvements to Flex Builder (now Flash Builder) 4, but it is not much better. Re-factoring support is almost non-existent, something I consider fundamental to the development process. Even simple renaming and moving of classes and variables doesn’t work properly. Code Formatting is still missing. And why can they still not get proper code navigation? What I mean is why can you only navigate up the class hierarchy and not down?
The most painful part of the development experience for me is how slow visual design is. The visual editor is useless. So all layout has to be done by hand. But even making a single change to the layout of a component, it re-compiles the entire project.
And there seem to be an endless amount of bugs. For example we recently found you can not have multiple projects that use locales. Or odd behavior, like changing the server side support in project properties messes up the entire project.
If I where to choose a new UI framework today I would have to seriously re-consider whether to use Flex. I would want to look at the entire development eco-system around alternatives. I think this is where JavaFX might be able to take the lead. It all depends on what Oracle does with NetBeans and JavaFX of course, but we can always hope.
admin flex flex
I have decided to stop development on anvil flex. It had a good 2 year run, but it’s sorely out of date. Mostly it has been replaced by other frameworks. Flex has made dramatic changes in the past several years and made a lot of anvil out of date. The Spring BlazeDS project provides much better back-end support and integration. On the Flex side the biggest downside is most of the data is passed using custom events. Today I would rewrite this using something like Swiz.
It has been really interesting developing anvil flex and I have learned a lot. Probably the biggest lesson is how hard it is to keep an open source project up to date. It gives you a much deeper appreciation for major open source projects and the amount of commitment it takes.
Some parts of anvil flex are still useful. It allows dynamically loading and managing modules. It also has a unique portal framework. The code will remain available on sourceforge and provides some good sample projects.
admin flex
