Adobe killed this blog when they killed Flex. Well I guess Flex is not all the way killed, more like stumbing around with a knife in the neck. So what’s next? I’m breaking out my crystal ball to see what the future holds…
Flex’s Future
With a singular, spectacular blog post Adobe eviscerated Flex and any hope of ever using Flex again. Thanks Adobe! Flex is dead dead, not just a little dead. No one in their right mind should ever start development on a Flex app. Period. I’ll make a nice pull quote just so you understand my opinion on the matter:
“Flex is dead!” — Justin
Spoon is not dead, nor is the open sourcing of Flex on Apache (as Apache Flex), but alas, no amount of open sourcing or intense community love will change things in this particular case. But since everyone is in love with zombies nowadays, I’m sure there are plenty of people and companies out there that see the simulacrum of life in Flex and call it life.
Flex Mobile’s Future (aka Adobe AIR)
Flex Mobile, aka Adobe’s cross-compiler that take AS3 code as input and outputs iOS binaries (as a fully formed IPA) and also Android binaries (APK), is decidedly not dead yet. But the most unfortunate part is that it certainly should be. In general, cross-platform mobile solutions (particularly Flex Mobile) really suffer when the make contact with reality (a real app with real functionality and real users). Sure they can be made to look pretty, sure they make great demos, and sure they lower the initial bar for developer. But you will never ever have as much control as you will when you go native. It is still the case today (March 24 2013) that the only good answer is go native, and write it twice. Twice being once for iOS and once for Android.
Flash Player’s Future
Banned from iOS, unsupported by Chrome Mobile, officially discontinued on all interesting mobile platforms, click to install on desktop Safari, no 64-bit flash player on linux, and now click to run on Firefox. Hmmm…I wonder what is next? How about dead. Yep, my crystal ball says that the flash player itself is on the gallows.
Let’s think about how Adobe makes money from Flash (this is coming from a developer that actually knows nothing)… From what I can tell, they sell really nice authoring tools, they sell some server-side tools (mainly Flash MediaServer, aka FMS), and they have a bunch of game stuff. I love games and I love watching video online, but does the flash-related parts of any of those mostly desktop businesses look healthy and awesome to you, especially with the rapid growth of mobile and tablets?
Adobe’s Future
Adobe will be certainly fine (but again, I’m just some guy who writes code). I always think of them as a tools company. Photoshop is a sweet piece of software (Photoshop 1.0 source is now available in the Computer History Museum). But the whole platform play that is Flash and Flex? I always felt that was Macromedia’s idea, and Adobe just went along for the ride after the aquistion. That ride isn’t much fun anymore.
And who just left? Kevin Lynch is moving to Apple (aka they guy who was chief software architect at Macromedia).
My Future
I know I’ll be doing some more speaking. And I’m trying hard to figure out how to create more teaching opportunities. I love teaching, but for whatever reason it’s hard to find the right teaching opportunity with the right students. I’ll always be learning new feameworks and languages, because that is a constant. But writing more content for this blog, probably not so much…
I’m working on couple of app ideas right now, and still writing lots of code, but only a little bit of that work will make it all the way to this blog. Watch my my github for some new projects.
