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From: Gordon Smith <gosmith@adobe.com>
To: "flex-dev@incubator.apache.org" <flex-dev@incubator.apache.org>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:48:36 -0800
Subject: RE: Flex 5 in haxe
Thread-Topic: Flex 5 in haxe
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> We need the Flash Player and AIR. Adobe needs to continue to support us.

The continued support is that AS3 and V11 and AIR-for-V11 aren't going away=
. But I think the idea is that they go into maintenance mode. They're not t=
he technology of the future. Do you want to develop for an old, aging platf=
orm?

> Adobe cannot starve it's children anymore. This needs to change.

Adobe changed its strategic focus with regards to RIAs and Flex more than a=
 year ago. (They probably weren't a sufficiently high-growth market to just=
ify significant continued investment.) I don't believe that the Flex commun=
ity can count on either being a focus again for Adobe in the future. Realit=
y is difficult, but it's real.

> I think more effort should be put in to talking to Adobe about exactly wh=
at is going on.

What exactly do you want to know that hasn't been explained numerous times =
over the last year?

- Gordon


-----Original Message-----
From: jude [mailto:flexcapacitor@gmail.com]=20
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 1:25 PM
To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Flex 5 in haxe

+1 to Nick's comments. Alex has stated that Adobe is looking at how the
Flex community responds to Apache Flex.

We need the Flash Player and AIR. Adobe needs to continue to support us.
Adobe cannot starve it's children anymore. This needs to change.

Flex is the greatest framework / toolchain I've ever used. It's not perfect=
 but it was / is the best out there IMHO. Adobe needs to realize they have =
the best solution for targeting multiple platform out there and not to thro=
w it all away. We can't go to JS. It's slow compared to Flash.

I attended a presentation on Starling and I think there is a future there.
Instead of writing to flash.display.DisplayObject you write to starling.dis=
play.DisplayObject. It is about 1000x faster. All GPU. I think we'd lose bu=
ilt in accessibility but you can still use the flash.display.* display list=
 and text. We can look into providing an alternative to that.
Abstracting out the drawing engine would allow us to drop in different targ=
ets.

Bruce has mentioned writing an open source FP. That would free us from bein=
g tied to any one VM but I would imagine it's gotta be a lot of work.
Maybe having the compiler generating different output for other VM targets =
would be better. Maybe add Unity or Silverlight targets.

Adobe is investing heavily in Gaming. So we can rely on that target for the=
 near future. In the meantime don't throw out the 6 yrs of work by excellen=
t Flex engineers. I think it is way too soon to talk about a rewrite.

I think more effort should be put in to talking to Adobe about exactly what=
 is going on.

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Gordon Smith <gosmith@adobe.com> wrote:

> > From what I previously read, I don't think we were getting an=20
> > updated
> Falcon compiler that will generate AVM3 code.
> > They were not planning on open-sourcing that (but correct me if I'm
> wrong in that aspect).
>
> That's correct. Adobe has no plans to open-source its new AS4-for-V12=20
> compiler.
>
> - Gordon
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nicholas Kwiatkowski [mailto:nicholas@spoon.as]
> Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 12:27 PM
> To: flex-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Flex 5 in haxe
>
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 3:08 PM, Stefan Horochovec <=20
> stefan.horochovec@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>
> > The development of the new VM and AS4 specification is not reported=20
> > or discussed with Apache Flex, knowing that we depend exclusively of=20
> > Flash Player and AIR to execute applications. This in my opinion is
> terrible.
> >
> > Again we will have to wait for an update from Falcon to generate=20
> > code for the V12, this delay the progress of the Flex when we are=20
> > expecting more and more code from Adobe.
> >
> > I'm not saying that we should use haxe, or some other compiler, just=20
> > think the time is an even broader discussion. The Flex should=20
> > continue only with Flash Player / Adobe AIR runtime?
> >
>
> This is, and has been par for the course.  When Adobe doesn't want to hea=
r
> us whine and moan, they close off development.   It happened before (and =
in
> many more products than just Flex/Flash), and I'm sure it will happen=20
> often in the future.  They feel they can surround themselves with=20
> "stakeholders"
> (a small, select subset of customers that their marketing team found them=
)
> to make major changes to platforms, products, etc.   At least this time,
> they were pretty clear in saying we wouldn't have a seat in the table=20
> for the future.  Previous times they gave us the illusion that we did.
>
> From what I previously read, I don't think we were getting an updated=20
> Falcon compiler that will generate AVM3 code.  They were not planning=20
> on open-sourcing that (but correct me if I'm wrong in that aspect).
>
> I'm pretty sure the community as a whole over the last 11 months have=20
> determined to break our dependency of the Flash Player.  We've had a=20
> LOT of proposals on how to do it -- none of them executed yet.  The=20
> silliest of the bunch in my opinion is porting to HaXe or starting=20
> from scratch.  Our power is leveraged from Adobe's initial 200,000=20
> hours of labor over the last many years.  We got an awesome code-base=20
> that while, it needs some major tweaks, is is really good shape. =20
> Dumping out the baby with the bath-water is not the way to go on a platfo=
rm that is mature and used by
> MANY large enterprises.   That being said -- this is now in the Apache
> world and I can't stop anybody from doing that, but I won't also be=20
> helping redo Flex from scratch.
>
> -Nick
>