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springframework
Known Participant
November 23, 2012
Question

Flash Professional as3, Flash Builder as3 or Flash Builder mxml?

  • November 23, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 644 views

So there is no doubt that Flash Builder with mxml is amazing. I Built my app in 2 months and it is amazing. The problem is that my app is way too slow and it not only freezes but freezes the whole phone and you have to take out the battery.

Now I built a test app with Flash Professional, that of course isn't yet as complicated as the Flash Builder app, which performs at the same speed as native apps. It never crashes and is just amazing.

I am wondering which direction to go. Which IDE to choose? Flash Pro or Flash Builder?

I agree Flash Builder is better in every way during the development process, but in the end... does all that matter? does it not all come down to how well the app performs for the end user?

From my website development experience I noticed that Flex websites are slow and crash web browsers. On the other hand Flash Professional apps never crash the web browser and run perfectly smooth.

I have only found two quality adobe air apps on the market and I 99% gaurantee they were both developed with Flash Professional.

Does anyone have an example of an app they know was developed with Flash Builder using mxml and which runs smooth and never crashes?

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1 reply

G
Gaius Coffey
Legend
November 23, 2012

Speaking as a developer who has built and worked on a number of large-scale apps for long-term clients; you would need to shoot me and prise the Flex framework from my cold, dead hands before I would give it all up in favour of the huge limitations of a pure AS implementation.

Yes, it is possible to build bad, slow, heavy Flex AIR apps. Yes, it is possible to build faster, slicker, lighter pure AS apps.

But...

Once an app is out there, you need to maintain it.

And...

If you build the thing properly in the first place, performance will be comparable or better using the well-defined systems and frameworks of Flex / AIR.

Or rather...

There are things that it is better to build your own controls for than to use Flex's ones, but those things are so few and far between, and so obvious after just a little bit of performance testing, that it is almost always going to be preferable to build using Flex default and then to replace the problem items _and_only_ the problem items with home-cooked controls that _are_integrated_ with the existing Flex framework.

G

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