Posted on February 1st, 2007 by Kevin Dangoor

links for 2007-02-01

  • Yolk
    tool for viewing the eggs.you have installed and activated and querying the cheeseshop. add a little more functionality, and this would be the ‘nest’ command that Phillip’s been meaning to write.
    (tags: python egg tools)
  • Hybridizing Java
    wherein Bruce Eckel puts forth Flex as the best choice for developing rich internet apps. I concur!
    (tags: flex programming javascript flash)

3 Responses to “links for 2007-02-01”

Phillip J. Eby on February 2nd, 2007 12:42 am:

Actually, you’d have to add a LOT more functionality. You’d also need to cross it with some of what workingenv and zc.buildout are trying to do. It’d also need to be more reliable. :)

Unfortunately, building these kinds of tools is *hard*.

brandon on February 2nd, 2007 1:06 am:

wait…u think that flex is the best solution for RIA UIs?

its great for stuff that u can’t do with javascript, like gliffy.com, but the majority of stuff doesn’t need it. also there are other things that are open and free that will solve some of the same problems that flash/flex does, like svg (x3d is pretty cool too for doing things that flex/flash can’t.).

xml based DSLs i think are the way to go for UIs. flex uses it, MS’ WPF uses it (similar to a flex/flash solution. however MS’ can be used for the desktop already and they are coming out with WPF-Everywhere, which can run on linux or mac.).

svg is also xml based! i would prefer to see that become mature and some good tools for creating svg based pages.

i just don’t think a closed source solution will be better in the long term.

tazzzzz on February 13th, 2007 2:24 am:

Hmm… through some problem with my email notification of comments, I missed these.

Phillip: I didn’t realize that you were planning for things like zc.buildout and workingenv-like capability. I think it’s a good start just being able to delete eggs, change versions, etc.

brandon: personally, I dislike XML-based DSLs. I think that’s a weak point of Flex, though you don’t have to use MXML.

Have you tried running SVG in IE? Do you have any idea how SVG is likely to perform compared to Flash?

Finally, the real reason that Flex is so cool is that it works *cross browser* without shenanigans. Yes, it’s closed source (though there’s an open source competitor in OpenLaszlo). But, Adobe’s control over Flash is part of the reason that it’s been able to mature quickly into something quite fast and usable. There are tradeoffs to open standards… seriously. Maybe Adobe will someday open the Flash spec as they have PDF. (They have, at least, donated their speedy JavaScript VM to Mozilla.)

I think that Flex is hard to beat *today*. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.