Air is Dead

[72Pantera]

Let's face it guys. Air is Dead.  Look at the feature list for 4.0.  The pace of development and bug fixes have slowed to a crawl.

It's presented to us as a mobile development platform but you can't pick a video from the Gallery, read the Contacts database or Play a movie.  The forums are full of bugs and when Adobe rarely chimes in it's to ask us to vote.  Shouldn't you just fix bugs?

It's touted as a cross platform mobile environment but it's not listed in a single article comparing them.  No new developer in his right mind would program in Flash at this point. I did for ten years but I'm done. Tired of spending hours on bugs and workarounds.

I wish Adobe would spin out the two or three guys still working on it and open source it.  Maybe they could call themselves MacroMedia.

[rionero_in_volture]

We are programmers ... we do not have irony.

YES! Because javascript + HTML is ugly.

I used javascript and dhtml 15 years ago.

I used hidden frames to do what is done today with ajax

back on javascript (and html5) after 15 years and it's always the same shit.

ok ok ok there are frameworks, a million framework ...

I would like to use flex as if it were one of these frameworks.

(flex is not just a set of UI components ... well implements the MVVM pattern, for example)

sorry for my english...

we italians do not write well in english.

ciao!

[Guest]

this is just your personal point of view. i am developer which has been working with flash/flex/air for more than 10 years. and i am still proud and happy for these technologies. i see how they are progressing and supported. i can easily migrate my complex business applications to Mac OS, Windows, iOS or any Android device. and this all is in OOP. there is no other such technology in the world like flash and air.

[little fat girl]

I sadly agree. And I appreciate you calling Adobe out on this. I've been using Flash for 15 years. The changing technological landscape never made me doubt Flash's future. What's made me doubt Flash's future is the way Adobe can't mothball it fast enough. A lot of us would be willing to stick our neck out for the product if it didn't seem like Adobe was ashamed of it (and of us).

It is sad to be in a design/animation dilema on the web much as we were in the late 90's( accomodating small screens; accomodating low-end processing power; regurgitating flat, cookie-cutter page layouts) and to see Adobe failing so hard at this.  Flash originally broke out in this kind of environment and turned loose a whole new immersive experience of motion and sound. And I know that Adobe can't control what Steve Jobs is going to say, but I have a hard time believing Macromedia would have let it go down like this.

If only the team from Macromedia would get back together and do a Kickstarter project to buy back Flash. I would support that. And given Adobe's attitude about Flash, they might be able to get a great deal on it.

[72Pantera]

Amen brother (or sister).  I really do see incredible potential as a cross platform mobile app environment for a dedicated team.  I've spent a huge amount of time trying the other cross platform tools (PhoneGap, Titanium, and more) and they all have major issues.

FlashBuilder with Starling/Feathers could be great but there are big issues.  To give a specific, I have a URLLoader that calls a web page that does a redirect.  It shouldn't matter to the client what the server does but Air locks up. It's been that way and reported to these forums for over a year.  I don't own the web page (service) and thus can't move forward and sadly (@Anton), I not up for rewriting URLLoader as an ANE.

Starling and Feathers can't build a skyscraper on a poor foundation. Evidenced by this post, Adobe has left the building.

[Parag_Shah]

Adobe AIR wins Compass Intelligence 2014 Mobility Award for Best Mobile App Development tool! Does anyone think it was a fluke?

[72Pantera]

How does the award help me get past the URLLoader bug that Adobe doesn't have the staffing to fix? How does it help me select a video from the Gallery?

[caiocanalli]

I do not say that Adobe Air is bad. But I regard it as a luxury car, which

Make love and adore. However, if the responsible for it had more desire and more believe in the product, it would be a 747. Would from time to other alternatives and concolidaria as the best. All my friends who do not work with the Flash Platform, think the ecosystem is dead, and because of the silence and inertia of Adobe, I can not argue much.

[72Pantera]

@TrickyDee, one could say the same for your reply.  Agree or disagree with the premise but don't challenge our right to have a discussion on a related topic.  "Discussions" is the title of this forum.

[TrickeyDee]

I don't see the point in this post. Use Flash for things it is good at and use alternatives for things they are better at - no need to complain about the technology you choose not to use. Surely you know how people react to this type of stuff on the internet. Whether you meant it or not (I imagine not), it is antagonistic. I also can't imagine it suddenly making Adobe act any differently.

[TrickeyDee]

As I said - I don't agree or disagree. I think it's a non-point which will annoy some people as we have seen in similar conversations. So no I don't challenge your right, but as you are having a conversation that will not accomplish anything, and will make some people feel bad I do question your judgment.

[72Pantera]

@TrickyDee, the post is already accomplished. I've programmed in Flash (and Air) for a decade but I'm not connected (other than this forum) to the Flash development world. Flash was pronounced dead in the media long ago but I never agreed.  I continued to program with it. The media moved on.

Now that I feel based on technical grounds - the slow pace of development and the lack of bug fixes for fundamental capabilities - that it's dead, I wanted to know if my fellow developers agree.  If you have no opinion on that, it is you who has the only inappropriate reply on this thread.

[TrickeyDee]

The point is, it's not that simple. 'Dead' for you (nice buzz word by the way) is not 'dead' for everyone else. Obviously there are still a lot of people being employed to use flash, and obviously there are a lot of areas for which it is no longer appropriate. My issue is the insistence (not just yours but that of many people) that it is black or white, dead or alive. Frankly it's a childish approach and it just leads to the type of technology wars that the internet is peppered with - and you can't say that your title is not sensationalist.

If you argue for the right to have the conversation, which I fully respect, then I must also argue for my right to express my thoughts. In this case they are that I believe the conversation to be moot. Use a technology where that technology is best suited. Air is still best suited to many areas.

[esDotDev]

72Pantera wrote:

@TrickyDee, the post is already accomplished. I've programmed in Flash (and Air) for a decade but I'm not connected (other than this forum) to the Flash development world. Flash was pronounced dead in the media long ago but I never agreed.  I continued to program with it. The media moved on.

Now that I feel based on technical grounds - the slow pace of development and the lack of bug fixes for fundamental capabilities - that it's dead, I wanted to know if my fellow developers agree.  If you have no opinion on that, it is you who has the only inappropriate reply on this thread.

Everyone would agree that development has slowed, and we'd like to see more major bug fixes, and support for Windows 8.

It's far from dead however, it's still the most robust, most efficient platform out there for creating apps. In fact, it just won an award in 2014 for exactly this:

https://plus.google.com/108881838127752282181/posts/Pgz7eSiV62R

You may have "10 years" experience building Flash or Flex stuff, but it sounds like you're relatively new to Adobe AIR for Mobile. Realize that some of us have been working on this stack for 3+ years now, are well aware of the competitors available, and continue to use AIR because it is hands-down the most efficient and robust solution available.

Also, this is LOL-worthy: "Google and Apple have real staffs and are advancing their SDKs", you want to see an excersize in futility, go try and log a bug with the Chrome or Safari teams. Last I checked, Chrome had well over 20,000 open bugs. Apple introduced tons of bugs for Native Developers in iOS7 (something good ANE's shield you from). Unity is notorious for taking _ages_ to address common bugs. Don't assume everything is greener on the other pastures

[iNDDev]

You are making a real mess of the arguments.  These are not complaints about Actionscript (or Flash or Air).  They are complaints about features that any language may or may not have. 

ANE problems are just that -- native problems.  You would not even be thinking cross-platform without Adobe Air.  Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle have actively inhibited Actionscript to reaplace it with proprietary code.  It is praiseworthy that Adobe has actively maintained Actionscript. 

Complaints about proprietary software should not be followed by claims about the value of objective-c.  And the Android Java is not proprietary, but is focused on Google and mobile so it does not translate to the desktop, Nook, Kindle, or Blackberry. 

Java is owned by Oracle.  When it was obtained from Sun, the user agreement was changed so you no longer have control of all of your code.  Java programmers jumped ship, because it *used to be* open source.  C is an impossible language for fast programming without a dozen propreitary tools and code bases.  And all of these have to be compiled for each OS that it is going to work on.  The same as Actionscript.

HTML5 is not cross platform.  Everyone knows this, and no one working with HTML5 will allow the discussion.  It is the emprorer's new clothes.  You yourself are not even planning to write in HTML5. 

The only complaint seems not being able to move/share/access video, which sounds like a huge opportunity.  *If* you can program that functionality cross-platform (and keep it up to date for each new OS iteration and new platform,) then you have something I would pay for (if I had a project that needed it).  You see an impossible obstacle, but you could see your future instead.  Yes, Adobe should address that, but they are doing a stellar job of bringing platforms into Air, so maybe they need to be sold on the true value they are missing.

And I disagree that accessing and sharing video is the most important feature is accessing and sharing video.  To me, it's of small value.  That's what YouTube is for, really.  And Vevo.  And Facetime, and whatever it is on Android.  And now Facebook.  So why is it so vital?  More details about the project would help.

Air/Actionscript is not dead.  You may have reached the limits of it's current range, though. 

[furian]

Hi guys,

It's hard, but I must admit that I also think things are going bad, and Pantera is somehow right.

I just did a mobile application with a lot of UI an some hardware usage (camera, GPS, etc.) Honestly, most of the time spent was fighting with those native extensions and their bugs, as well as with Feathers (Starling is just lovely).

I don't understand the idea of bringing such key feature as Stage3D, and not doing a single effort to include core things. I don't understand how such a straight-forward thing as UI components can be outsourced to a SINGLE guy, that everyone needs to take in mind, just because he has his own idea of programming. I could say nothing about Starling as I'm not that deep in it and I don't mind if it's made by Gamue or natively by Adobe.

I get all your points. I also like the idea of cross platform development. But still, there is one problem - you cannot call something 'good' when you spent MOST of your time dealing with third-party problems (I had to make Facebook SSO + Share dialog -> bought three extensions and wrote more than 10 emails for support, as there is almost no documentation). I've registered, read tons of posts and submitted several bugs for Feathers.

How you call this normal development?! Do you know how much time and efforts I had to put only to read and post bugs for something, that could have been done internaly for no time (Flex got all code for components, but Feathers started from scratch).

Another thing that I have to agree with Pantera - I don't see any progress, or it is so small and insignificant. For so many years there are only things put on top of everything, that work with some hacks and are partly supporteed. Workers are so weird I always avoid them. Stage3D has so many restrains that you have to read for a whole week to understand them. You need to know which framework to use, how to use it, what are it's bugs and how to hack them. You must know where to buy native extensions and how to work-around them.

This is not a top edge technology, this is a legacy. I must admit that after this project I'm just looking for something to switch to. And Unity3d (which now has 2d) uses C#, which I think is a true MODERN language with less bugs and more people working on it. AIR is going down as Adobe put so much efforts in HTML5 and JS stuff..

[hybridmindset]

esDotDev +1

@72Pantera you can't be serious with this post! I understand you can get frustrated when things don't work but your whole argument is irrelevant if you are willing to write your app natively twice in objective-c then in java instead of fixing a small bug in a native ANE. If there even is a bug and its not user error. That would make NO SENSE! C'mon man...

Just because Adobe doesn't provide the exact component you need for your implementation doesn't make Adobe AIR a dead platform. If you want to jump ship and use something else, go right ahead, just don't put this negative energy out there which is misleading to people that are not knowledgable about the platform.

[72Pantera]

@hybridmindset, let me know when they fix the year old bug that keeps URLLoader from consuming any web service that has a redirect. Show me the ANE that replaces it or tell me how to fix bugs in Air itself.

You can call it negative energy but I see it as the canary in the mine.  If only Adobe cared as much as we do.

[hybridmindset]

I understand the frustration when you have a platform bug that you can't fix yourself and you are on a deadline, etc, but that is not a good reason to drop a platform. Find a work around. Thats what you as a developer get paid to do as an expert. Just get the job done at the end of the day.

[72Pantera]

@hybridmindset = "The bridge is out and we can't get there from here but lets keep driving!"  Good pep talk.

[esDotDev]

72Pantera wrote:

@hybridmindset = "The bridge is out and we can't get there from here but lets keep driving!"  Good pep talk.

More like: Well I got a flat tire. Might as well spend 3days walking the rest of the way and buy a new car, instead of just 30 minutes to fix the tire.

[hybridmindset]

@72Pantera = "'Air is Dead' - because I found a potential bug loading urls" THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END lol this is comical man. A broken url loader in your scenario of a redirect isn't the bridge its a small piece of road debris. Drive around it and move on with your life.

[72Pantera]

Guys, thats only one of many examples where the fix *must* be made by Adobe.  If only they cared as much as you. Sadly, they don't.

[flexengineer]

It is much more complicated than that, Adobe is split in 2 and is the victim of the highest level of corporare politics i personally have ever seen in a multinational. There is no leadership passed the VP and a big part of the management is now improted from the third world. India is taking over Adobe, its CEO has been facilitated a takeover by his home country, and Indian workforce is simply not fit for creative products or for Adobe as the most creative company on the plabet. It is becoming a third world shadow of itself but fortunately there are still some of the best talents in the industry who are fighting for Flash and AIR, and the company simply cannot function without that pool of western talents. You can see that split into two world when you walk around the SF office and the San Jose tower. But again, the cheap side of Adobe cannot function without its bright side and if all the crap some people have been posting about Adobe or AIR being dead was true, we would not have won the CES award for best mobile development software, we would not have gotten multithreading which now allows us to be at parity with native apps, the Olympics apps would not have been developed with AIR, Flash would not still rule the gaming world making a shame of HTML5, the top 9 Flash technology enabled games in China would not generate over US$70 million a month, multi billion empire such as Zinga would not be still heavily relying on Flash, Adobe new Primetive solution which revolutionize television over IP would not have Flash as its core (now with HLS built in as of December 2013), companies like HBO would not have their mass public web properties still in Flash despite spending years trying to move to HTML5. The bottom line is that Flash and AIR are the most advanced application development platform ever seen and still today a decade ahead of anything else including the biggest antitrust corporarte bullying scam in the entire history of Internet commonly called HTML5. So keep talking haters, we will keep rocking no matter the garbage you vomit online.

[72Pantera]

flexengineer, I appreciate your insights. I am not a hater.  I'd love to see Flash/Air get back on track and would instantly get back on the bus. My point, and you've reinforced it, is that corporate politics matter.  A house divided cannot stand.  I'd love to see Flash sold or spun out. 

[flexengineer]

Adobe as an untouchable penetration and integration, its flagship products makes it a giant no one is going to defeat anytime soon. The company has survived Jobs' vicious vendetta, if Jobs did not take it down, split and divided or not, it is not going to go down anytime soon. By beating Flash and AIR we make the work of our allies in the company that much more difficult, we make the lies of the Apple carriers that much louder, we help our enemies, and at the end we are only hurting ourselves. We can criticize Adobe for its failure but "AIR is dead" is the kind of hate BS that does not serve any purpose. You can clamore the fact you love Flash as much as you want, your statements are not showing any of that. At least they should be accompigned with amphasis on the advances of the platforms and its benefits. It is still the best solution out there, not bad for a dead technology is not it?