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From: "Michael A. Labriola" <labriola@digitalprimates.net>
To: "flex-dev@incubator.apache.org" <flex-dev@incubator.apache.org>
Subject: RE: Why Spark? (was Re: s:Spacer (was Re: Missing Spark components))
Thread-Topic: Why Spark? (was Re: s:Spacer (was Re: Missing Spark
 components))
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Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 02:17:05 +0000
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>So if paying for the flex Ide is their only revenue point, to say that the=
 mx components were badly written is false. They hit exactly the crowd that=
 they needed to hit with them. You may be happy with the spark >components,=
 but that's when flex died, after they were introduced. When the little guy=
 was pushed out.

If they hit their sweet spot at any point, they might have made enough mone=
y to fulfill both of our wishes. Further, whether or not something was comm=
ercially viable is not an indicator of its strengths from an architectural =
perspective. While there may be more small teams, those enterprises that we=
re employing hundreds of developers were also the ones churning through peo=
ple and effectively paying to train new developers which enter the market. =
This is good for everyone involved. They were also the ones that, marketed =
to effectively, could have paid for the features every product could use. I=
ncidentally, I did not say I was happy with Spark. I said that parts of it =
were a step in the right direction.

Flex 'died' because it took 2+ years to develop the next, and still incompl=
ete, version of a component set.

>I have no doubt that given this experience you are well suited to guide th=
e core framework internals in the future, but not if you can't recognize th=
at it's a niche case and that mx covered 95% of most user's needs.

I am a consultant. I worked on projects large and small and you are in the =
vast minority of people who believe that mx covered 95% of most user's need=
s. Incidentally, I never argued that we needed a complete component rewrite=
 and I am not pushing for that now. I would have much preferred an iterativ=
e improvement model to mx over the years. I don't think our ideas on this a=
re very far apart in truth. I was just pointing out that the spark architec=
ture does give us several things mx never did. We can build on both of thes=
e to make something that is 'pay as you go'. That means we cover the small =
projects needs but don't handicap the bigger projects. That is all I am aft=
er. I don't want to change the model, I want to remove the barriers that pr=
event us from doing more.

>Most projects can't create components for the project. Most projects use c=
omponents to build the project. That's why they are called components.
>They are reusable. Most projects are focused on the content and use the co=
mponents to display the content.

We don't disagree on any of your major points.