Adobe announces Rails SDK for Flex
Posted by David September 07, 2006 @ 03:50 AM
Adobe’s Mike Potter brings the cherry news that an officially-backed Rails SDK for Flex and the rest of the company’s RIA suite is now available.
Derek Wischusen from Flex on Rails gives us the scoop on its content:
Currently, the SDK contains a sample demonstrating: (1) Intergrating with a database, basic CRUD, and rails migrations. (2) Uploading and downloading files. (3) Downloading data directly from Flex and sending data to a new browser window directly from Flex. (4) a simple Directory Explorer. The last sample uses WebORB for integrating Flex with Rails.
Great news. Flash is on the fast track out its ghetto image and its exciting to see Adobe care about integration with the world around it.
It wouldn’t suprise me if this is an artifact of Measure Map, which Google purchased and is where you can download the source.
A word to the wise for would-be Flex developers: If you bet on Flash, and not using Flash is a sensible option, you probably made a mistake.
oh please! burn flash on a funeral pile.
soon I will flexing out the pimp cup in the ghetto with rails and DDR. respect.
NIIIIIICE :)
Olli, if you don’t use it it doesn’t mean it’s not worth to be here.
Great, more encouragement of something tightly controlled by a single vendor. I thought that was one of the advantages of Rails over what Sun and Microsoft push. Why is Adobe a vendor worth betting everything on?
“fast track out its ghetto image”? You’ve got to get out more! Flash has been there for awhile. Just because a small group of designers still chooses to misuse it doesn’t mean it hasn’t gained HUGE traction in the RIA space – it was doing AJAX for many people before AJAX was cool.
maybe on the day when Adobe cares also for Linux I might have a closer look into it… until then forget it.
David’s post is valid. This is a Rails story and shouldn’t be ignored (even though I would be fine if it were buried).
But this post wasn’t just reporting about Rails and Flex, it was endorsing it by using phrases like “cherry new” and “Great news.”
The problem is that RIA doesn’t stand for Rich Intranet Application, it stands for Rich Internet Application. If it were Intranet, I wouldn’t care that much.
And the problem with Flash for RIA technology is that it is mainly controlled by one company.
The web is what it is today because it isn’t controlled by one company, and the barriers to get on the web are low – browser (preferably an open source browser like Firefox or Konqueror).
If I cared about creating RIA Flash apps, I wouldn’t use Adobe anyway. I would use an open source solution, like OpenLaszlo.
But I’ve stayed away from OpenLaszlo, because not every platform has a equal access to the Flash plugin, and there are many users that won’t install the plugin b/c they subscribe to the FSF ideas about code and freedom.
The interesting things is that in checking on OpenLaszlo again, I find they even they see the light!! Their next version will generate Flash AND DHTML: http://www.openlaszlo.org/advancedajax
This news posted here by David is “cherry” if there is a need to be validated by a major corporation. This news is “cherry” if you are coding an intranet application. This news is NOT “cherry” if one cares about the state of the internet.
Flash got its “ghetto” image because it degrades the user’s experience in many ways: - can’t bookmark individual pages - can’t easily cut and paste - can’t be index by search engines - can’t be used by the blind - can’t use many browser plugins that rely on manipulating text - is controlled mainly by one company
For the record, Rails IS “cherry”: - because it is open source - because it isn’t controlled by one company - because it can produce standard HTML and CSS and get great effects with AJAX.
I am pro Rails, and pro Rails + anything that produces open standard code.
Obviously a developer is free to make a choice whether to use Flex or not, but like one of the above posts mentioned, the developer should be aware that there are consequences to such a choice.
Sorry to be a downer, but there is a bigger picture here that is not being looked at.
maybe on the day when Adobe cares also for Linux I might have a closer look into it… until then forget it.
DDR? What does RAM have to do with anything? Or was that Dance Dance Revolution?
Yes but on the plus side (you wingeing pack of freaks) this stuff looks like it will be good for graphing data/stats, way easyer then installing RMagic.
Thanks for the post David, its great to see them interested in products and technology aside from their own. They could have kept all Flash/Flex technology they develop solely related to Coldfusion, but they haven’t.
Adobe does care about linux – do the research, you might be suprised.
I think its hilarious how just mentioning the word ‘flash’ brings out the haters. Half of these people wouldnt even watch the DHH Keynote because, gasp, it was being streamed in flash video, OH MY.
And all this talk about ‘control by a single vendor’ makes me laugh. Everything you’ve purchased for your home has been ‘controlled by a single vendor’ – your everyday life is built around non-open sourcedness, why is it such a big deal when it comes to !@#$%^ software???
You buy into it, you use it, or you don’t. Damn.
That’s super that you don’t want to use proprietary software, but to discount something entirely because it’s controlled by one company (one company that has an incredible and mature developer community) has it’s own consequences.
Don’t equate RIAs with an XHTML web site. The latter may contain the former, but they are not identical. As such, they have different requirements and serve different audiences.
I say good for Rails! It’s good to be able to integrate the two. Just check the attitude and educate yourself about the modern midset and ecosystem of Flash and Flex. It isn’t for crappy web page introductions anymore (and really hasn’t been for awhile now).
Oh and for the “controlled by one xxx”, Rails in controlled by one person: DHH. Sure, he has lots of committers, and core developers, and lots of fans buying books and t-shirts and starting blobs – but don’t kid yourself – if DHH has a meltdown and gets a little too passionate, the Rails community is in deep doo doo. I’ve seen it many times before in the Open Source world and private sector alike.
Now, I mean that in no way as a slight against DHH, he’s proven himself to be an incredible evangelist and developer. However, it goes to show that just because a product is controlled by a single person or organization, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing and that open source doesn’t guarantee a stable future.
DW, I used to agree with you. Back when Adobe had Flash position as an EITHER/OR proposition. You either choose the free web or you go with us into a dark cave.
These days Adobe are a lot more realistic about their place in the universe. Flash is today an AND proposition. Something you can use to enhance and augment the experience.
Just one small example, in Campfire we use flash to create notification sounds. HTML sucks for sound, flash is great for that.
So this is cherry for web developers working on public stuff. I’ve seen flash with flex come to great use with live data visualization too. Stuff where your alternative is a Java applet (eeks!).
It’s certainly for everything. In many ways, I consider it a niche tool, but an important niche tool none the less.
primeClass Rails < Good::Prog has_many :lovers
I’ve tried Ruby four years ago and didn’t catch me. Now, I’m here because of David H.H. genius and, of course, his ability to communicate ideas effectively and his strong convictions and principles.
But, one thing that also liked is belonging to a small comunity of outsiders-friends-creators.
Are we losing that feeling?
Is it true that Rails is still controlled
- in the same manner that Flash is controlled by Adobe -by DHH? last I heard it could be forked any time and it had indeed been opensourced.Something in the license I missed?
Maybe the name “Ruby on Rails” is his intellectual property, but then again, wasn’t rails done as work for hire for 37 signals and was “Open Sourced” by 37signals?
Obviously, it hasn’t been forked because DHH is such an evangalizing feind (and that is awesome for us all) but technically it could be done; right?
So, Can the reall DHH please stand up and tell us that Ruby On Rails is indeed open source and technically can be forked or continued if he gets hit by a truck or has a “nervous breakdown” as Chris Carter put it?
just so the rest of us don’t have a nervous breakdown :)
Rails is indeed open source. And, there is a whole core team with commit rights, so I think we’ll manage.
Rails can indeed be forked. People do it all the time in their local installations when they add or fix a feature. Until that feature is accepted into the core, they’re running a fork.
Linux support for Flash Player 9 is coming. There should be a beta version out shortly, with a full release early next year. Follow the progress at http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/
Mike
David, thanks for the clarifying your point of view. Based on context, I think your sentence “It’s certainly for everything.” should have been “It’s certainly not for everything.”
Yes, I can agree that Flash is a niche tool that can have its place. There are times when it is easier to view videos with Flash (as long as they are compiled for 7) in GNU/Linux than some of the other formats, b/c of codec issues.
That being said, my worry is more of the abuse of Flash—the developer that has some Flash skills and thinks its the best thing since sliced bread, so they make a whole site (including navigation) Flex/Flash w/o weighing the consequences.
There are young developers looking up to certain leaders, so if you endorse Flash / Flex without clarifying that it has its “niche,” it could be misleading. In Agile Web Development with Rails, you teach some great programming practices, and I would love to see those ideas show through in some of the blog posts. Just my opinion. DHH the role model! = )
A lot of the people that use terms like “hater” and phrases like “check the mind set” just are missing the point. I don’t hate Flash, but I love the freedom of the web and what has come of it, not being owned by one company. I don’t have an attitude, I have a philosophy I believe in. Comments like those are childish and naive, and only server to make it easy to dismiss certain ideas by invalidating them b/c they can claim it’s just another comment from another a Flash hater.
As for the control issue, you have people that really don’t understand the situation. They don’t truly understand licensing, copyright and trademark laws. Rails can be forked. That is technically possible because of the MIT license. It would need to be renamed b/c of the trademarks that David holds. Some examples are Mambo/Joomla! and XFree86/X.org.
Now, just as Linux (the kernel) can be forked, the likelihood of it happening is small. DHH is the Linus of Rails, and Rails is what it is today b/c of DHH. But it is technically possible for Rails to be forked if DHH loses the confidence of the people, and that lets a lot of developers feel comfortable adapting Rails.
As for Linux, well, yes, I run Linux (at work and at home). And so does my girlfriend, Dad, brother and uncle. And even if one bends their beliefs and installs a proprietary Flash plugin, they are still only at 7 for Linux! My girlfriend doesn’t really understand why things compiled for only 9 don’t work. All she knows is Flash can really piss her off.
There was talk of Linux users at time getting 8 too, but that never happened. And even if they do release 9 for Linux, it will be proprietary AND next year? I’m not really feeling the love.
I don’t mean to hijack the post, but I think this discussion should be out there, and you can agree or disagree. But there is an issue with using proprietary technologies (Active X) and endorsing them without clarification, and to pretend it doesn’t exist sends a message.
Thanks for the exchange of ideas, everybody.
My point wasn’t that you can’t fork the code, or continue developing Rails if something were to happen to DHH. Rails isn’t popular because it’s a good framework, it’s popular because it has an incredibly passionate individual lighting fires under everyones asses, which has spawned a vibrant community. However, DHH is still the driving force behind that community.
My point was not to express doubt about the strength of the Rails environment, but to prove the point that discounting something because it has a single driving force behind it would net you nearly no projects to work with, open source or otherwise, if you really felt that way.
DW said- “The problem is that RIA doesn’t stand for Rich Intranet Application, it stands for Rich Internet Application. If it were Intranet, I wouldn’t care that much.”
Dude, who the heck do you think created the RIA market? MACROMEDIA! They coined the name. lol. RIA = Rich Internet Application which started out based on Flash and now Javascript+Ajax+DHTML is in the market as well.
Other comments were good enough to negate other close-minded comments so I’ll stop here. :-)
John C. – I don’t really see what point you are making. You may have misunderstood what I was trying to convey. I was saying that if a Flex/Flash app was deployed in a controlled environment, like a corporate intranet, the issues I’m bringing up about open standards and freedom to information (Flash can be a barrier to that freedom) are not the same. (But even there, as an IT person, I want the freedoms of FOSS for my department and business!) But once code it is on the internet for pubic consumption (I know not everything on the internet is web or for public consumption), then these issues I have raised should be taken into account. Taking time to consider how your site/information is accessed and who can access your site/information is not closed minded. It is just considerate and professional.
I don’t really care who coined RIA, but whatever. I am not against rich internet applications. For example, AJAX is not controlled by a single vendor. And unlike almost every Flash app I have seen (I’m sure there is an exception), many professional developers make sure their applications still work even if JavaScript is turned off.
And a “single driving force” is not the same as controlling through copyright and licenses the code.
Rails is attracting a very diverse crowd, and from a bunch of different camps and mindsets. This is great. David, you have a great opportunity to influence these developers. We all know the “with great power come great responsibility” saying. Well, there is truth to that. I’ll let this be my last response to this post. Happy coding.
DW, your closed mind isn’t because you “care” it is because you are bashing Flash and obviously have no true knowledge of what it can do for you. All you can say is: IT AIN’T FOSS! Ok…and? If Rails/Ruby was controlled by 1 vendor (after knowing how great it is), would you ditch it? Hrmm…I doubt it. At least not for that reason I don’t think.
Flash is not for every situation/solution. The same goes for Ajax. There is a time and place for everything, which is where I believe we agree. :-)
I’d seriously like to see these “professional developers” that build 2 sites. I’m not saying folks don’t do it but a site that is dedicated to Ajax is dedicated to Ajax. If it only has highlights in Ajax, then I understand. Google didn’t even do it with GMail. Turn off JS…what do you get? A nice lil’ error message. Again, the only argument you have is FOSS. The same problems Flash has, so does Ajax/DHTML but they differ in many areas, including abilities and implementations.
BTW, one more place Ajax/DHTML can’t compete with Flash (on several levels): http://finance.google.com/finance?q=GOOG. That is a nice mix of Flash+JS. ;-) Again…time and place.
Disclaimer: I’m seriously not trying to flame you or argue on this blog all the time. You just seem to show up on every Flash related post my buddy sends me from this blog and you continuously say some “interesting” things (to be p.c.). :-) All is well on my end.
DW:
You mention that you love all the AJAX stuff that Rails can do … and how you love the fact it’s open-source and not owned by a single body … yet you can only produce all the nice AJAX effects you mention is you stick to the ‘built-in’ Prototype & Scriptaculous liibraries. If you want to use any others such a Yahoo! UI or Moo.FX then all the helpers etc don’t work and there’d be a whole lot of coding required to get up to the same level of support. Is this not itself propritory, to take full advantage of Rails I HAVE TO use a library DHH chose, not one I did !?