Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX - Who cares?
It seems every Blue Chip and his dog is announcing a post Web2.0 RIA development tool these days. Adobe has Flex (aka Flash), Microsoft has Silverlight (aka ActiveX), and Sun announced JavaFX at JavaOne last week (aka Java applets). Now even Firefox is making noise about how Firefox will have features designed to go head-to-head with Flash and Silverlight! (I had hoped browser builders had learnt their lessons about proprietary browser tech in Browser War I…)
To me, this just seems like a bunch of old ideas repackaged with new Web2.0 marketing spin. It’s difficult to find developers genuinely excited about all this. Most of the noise seems to be coming from the big companies themselves.
Browser plugins have been dead for a while now. Java applets were never really that good to begin with and died shortly after birth. ActiveX kinda faded away due to security problems and cross-browser incompatibilities. Flash is still around, but really only used for (annoying) movie trailer sites, obnoxious web ads, and YouTube. It’s surprising that these ideas are being dredged up again and touted as the Next Big Thing.
It will be interesting to see where these platforms go. My guess is that they’ll fade into irrelevance before long due to developer apathy (users hate plugins as well, but thats another post). The main warning sign is that most of the noise out there at the moment isn’t from excited bloggers writing "Check out this cool Foobar app that I wrote in Silverlight/Flex/JavaFX!". No. Mostly the blogosphere is talking about press releases with an occasional overview of the technologies at a high level. No killer apps (or even mildly dangerous apps), no new possibilities that weren’t there before. Just promises of more of the same, except a bit easier and whizzier, and with video content (as if the only thing stopping every 2nd developer launching the next youtube was the current technology…). All done with a corporate designed feel and colour scheme. There just isn’t the grassroots enthusiasm there. That has to be grown organically. Not built by a marketing team.
These platforms are all trying to emulate and replace Ajax. The current usage of Ajax wasn’t engineered. It almost happened by accident through a combination of new uses of existing tech, new ideas, and realisation of new needs. There was no big bang product release, or big marketing campaign, or corporate backing. Just a grassroots momentum that built on its own due to developers seeing value in the technology and users enjoying the results. It helped that the mum and dad users didn’t have to install any additional plugins to use gmail or youtube as well.
Realistically, I think Ajax will be around for a while. It’s just that it’ll get easier to build as new supporting technologies are developed. The tech to watch are the ones that have a slow rumbling build up, then exponentially grow to a roar due to the passionate developers actually getting real value out of them. Look where Rails, Ruby and dynamic languages were a couple of years ago, and you’d find a few fanatical supporters that were passionate about it just because they could see the value. Look where Erlang and other functional languages are now and you see the same thing. They are the ones to watch. The technologies with the slow groundswell of support rather than the hollow big bang spin fest.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
I loved this post even if I disagreed with the last couple of paragraphs about how long Ajax will be around. You’re right, we haven’t seen the mass developer excitement we see with Ajax. We don’t have a lot of killer RIAs. But there are some cool ideas out there and we’re at the point where more developers are checking out these technologies to see what they can do. We’re making baby steps.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:21 am
You are so totally wrong! What really creates value and business is not enthusiasm on developers’ side. It’s customers who matter, real applications with deadlines and robustness and maintainability constraints. The kind of things where Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX, and OpenLaszlo, and XUL… can really help. It’s time to rationalize and get rid off all this AJAX tinkering crap.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:51 am
>The kind of things where Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX, and OpenLaszlo, and XUL… can really help
Maybe you were sleeping when a large part of the world — including high value business users — happily and eagerly switched to “thin” apps from thick apps.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:53 am
I’m not sure of your key point; perhaps it’s this:
“These platforms are all trying to emulate and replace Ajax.”
Here’s a timeline:
1995: Browser plugins and JavaScript appear. Network-aware applications also appear (Director Projectors, SuperCard, ToolBook, Oracle).
1997: DHTML arrives via Netscape.
1998: DHTML killed via confusion from Microsoft.
1998: Dreamweaver tries to bridge the Netscape innovations and the Microsoft forkings.
2002: RIAs invented, via Flash.
2003: Flex announced (as “Royale”).
Feb 18 2005: DHTML + XHR rebranded as Ajax; JavaScript technicians feel enfranchised.
2006: Flex 2 gets massive adoption.
2006: Apollo announced, to marry web development with desktop privileges.
2007: We are here now.
Being inside a browser is not the only way to use a network. Seeing technology through a JavaScript prism is not the only way to look.
“The tech to watch are the ones that have a slow rumbling build up, then exponentially grow to a roar due to the passionate developers actually getting real value out of them.”
That’s often true, but “slow buildup” implies that many ignore it at first, and so have an altered view of history.
jd/adobe
May 16th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Sarbogast - True. The market you’re talking about (non start-up, corporate development) will probably start to embrace these platforms anyway. My point is that the rate they do will probably not be all that great, and they may not even gain enough mindshare to permanently take hold.
As you say, customers do care about real applications, deadlines, robustness, maintainability, constraints - which is why most developers are so reluctant to take a punt on new technology that hasn’t been proven in the field. Which is essentially what these platforms are. I haven’t seen any evidence that Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX provide anything above Ajax (except for obvious cases of graphical apps that Ajax can’t do very well)
John Dowdell - I guess my key point is that there is a lot of noise about RIAs as an alternative to Ajax web based Web2.0 apps, but not a lot of substance. And that developers aren’t excited or interesting enough about the problem space to pick up and learn new tools. This seems more true of Silverlight and JavaFX which seem like “me too” efforts. It is probably more unfair of me to lump Flex in (it has been around a lot longer and has roots going back to Flash as you say), but it too has been riding a lot of hype lately about it’s open sourcing.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Maybe you were sleeping when a large part of the world — including high value business users — happily and eagerly switched to “thin” apps from thick apps.
Well, they did do that. Like a bunch of sheep. Honestly, I think it was more the developers’ idea than the users.
I have clients who HATE there webapp applications. I have a desktop application that we are converting them to from web apps.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I don’t know if you really had your hands on AJAX and the like. If you have to combine it with e.g. JSF by hand you get into maintenance hell soon. Although, AJAX helps to simulate the desktop metapher it wasn’t designed for it. So, I hope we will get Flex or similar technologies into mainstream soon to get rid of all this time-wasting stuff.
More on this:
http://blog.rainer.eschen.name/2007/05/15/flash-or-pure-web-programming-to-skip-jsf-or-struts/
May 16th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Yeah, I’d much rather keep trying to glue things together with HTML and Javascript. Why would we want to start developing web applications with real end-to-end languages? All of these new RIA frameworks are attempts at improving the development of web apps — what’s wrong with that? These technologies have the potential to combine the superior interface of the rich client with the ubiquity and “always on” aspects of the web.
Also… Silverlight is NOT ActiveX. It’s a true attempt from Microsoft at cross-platform development — and with the DLR, they’re stretching their open-source legs too. Don’t knock it.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Rainwebs - “If you have to combine it with e.g. JSF by hand you get into maintenance hell soon.” No argument there, I don’t hide my feelings about the complexity of the various Java frameworks
Ajax isn’t exactly a pleasant way of doing things, but a heavy Java stack makes life even worse (choice of server and client frameworks make this better).
I’m not saying Ajax is the best tech out there, its just that it works now, has a decent developer base, and no problems with installed user base (they just need a modern browser, which everyone has). Developers have embraced it, and the frameworks are open for the most part, so they will be improved on. (unlike the closed RIA frameworks)
Nate Kohari - Nothing wrong with the frameworks themselves. They look like good technology. My point is that they face challenges with adoption, and the problem they claim to solve isn’t actually that much of a problem (the need for graphically rich internet apps that require offline access just isn’t that common).
I know Silverlight isn’t ActiveX. I was just speaking tongue in cheek ;). (I also know Flex isn’t Flash, and JavaFX isn’t Java Applets). I mentioned it because in ActiveX is the roots of the thinking that must have influenced the development of Silverlight.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Who cares? Lots of people besides you. Have fun with your hopelessly crippled AJAX. The rest of the world will move on.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Well, you probably have some good points in your blog Post. I have lived through the ups and downs of working in Flash for the web since version 2 and it has its advantages and disadvantages.
However, now that I am working more in Flex and learning about Apollo I find myself thinking beyond the browser word and more along the lines of using Flex for higher end application development. (i.e. http://www.intelisea.com/)
I think that AJAX will have a far reaching grasp on the browser world, but with FLEX we can go anywhere the Flash Player can take us including automotive dashboards and luxury yacht monitoring systems.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Nonsense blog. You are totally ignorant about these technologies. Study first before writing about something
July 1st, 2007 at 10:48 pm
For the kind of application we are building needs web interface with a lot of graphical stuff happening…e-learning apps: drawing, math symbols, audio-video synchronization etc. We have web developers, Flash developers, Windows app developers as well as developers who work on the core SWF format.
Our “web developers” have no clue how AJAX can handle these features so they have given up. So, in my eyes AJAX is useless for this scenario (also acknowledged by someone else in this post). Flash gets the job done to some extent but it is still not “rich” enough from the core engineering standpoint (synchronization of audio/video with other objects, CPU and memory utilization etc.). Further, there are not enough libraries written for Flash (say an editor for MathML). Also, Flash Media Server, which hardly any developer knows in-depth (the first “beginner’s book” on FMS2 is just out), is far from being a decent platform.
Now I am looking at silverlight and really hoping that it delivers what Ajax, Flash and the likes could not. My hopes come from the following observations:
1. There is a big developer community of MS-based technologies in India.
2. MS has always enjoyed support of 3rd party developers writing various components.
3. Unlike Macromedia/Adobe, MS really support their developers with good documentation, integrations etc. We have been working with Flash for years and for the most part is has been disappointing to develop apps beyond video sharing.
4. My belief that Silverlight too would be ubiquitous because of the Windows install base.
5. My (limited so far) knowledge of how silverlight handles stuff behind the scenes which is MUCH better than Flash.
From the developer standpoint, I would go through the trouble of asking our customers to install a 1MB Silverlight plug-in than to get stuck with (Flash or Ajax) technology wondering what to do next.
My 2 cents.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:43 am
You have a funny way of asking, but we do care. You do make very good points though.
I linked to this post from our poll for the “Who cares” option. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have come up with this -valid- option!
I voted for JavaFX, with AJAX being my second option.