Future of Viewer for Flex Development

Question

So what are everyone's thoughts regarding the future of the Flex API and the Viewer for Flex?

Based upon the following post from ESRI, it appears that Flex will be shelved after this year with only (2) scheduled upgrades for the year 2014.  Article Link: ESRI's Roadmap for Web Developers

Is there any chance that ESRI will hand the code over to the open source world so that Flex can be maintained?

I have to say that this came as somewhat of a shock after being assured last fall that ESRI will continue to fully support the platform.

You may want to pass the work on to those that are not yet aware of the future change...

Haskett

BrianO_keefe · Answer

however if Adobe is going to retire the SWF, then that would change everything.

Yeah, I'm a Creative Cloud (for Students) subscriber and so I get TONS of Adobe email. I've downloaded and installed EVERYTHING my subscription gets me, even if I'll never actively use it. Just to browse around and see all the magic! Anyway, I don't remember where I've read it but it was something about retiring the SWF and moving to HTML5 without losing Actionscript or the IDE. I imagine we'd get a translator system converting ActionScript to HTML5 or something in between, maybe an Adobe Javascript library or something? I don't know. But when you can find examples of HTML5 that 'seem' to blow any SWF action (that I've seen) out of the water, it makes sense. Adobe can NOT afford to drop behind the curve on web dev.

As far as ESRI is concerned tho, I just hope they can stay relevant in the web world without forcing everyone to 'go cloud or die' like it 'feels' like they are doing now. Those of us working with 'somewhat' sensitive data can't afford to 'go cloud' through someone else, regardless of their qualifications. We have to be able to host, control, and serve our data as WE see fit, not as Company X's cloud program offers...

Again, exciting either way!

GeorgeHaskett · Answer

I get it. In a growing mobile environment ESRI (and hopefully everyone else) wants to see development focus on tools and technology that will include more users rather than exclude. Flash/Flex has been highly restrictive in this nature.

I remember reading something recently about ADOBE eventually planning on retiring the SWF as well, moving to a fully HTML5-interactive Flash/Flex environment. I get the feeling they'll try to make the IDE the same but the output is HTML5 compliant versus SWF files. *shrugs*

Either way, I'm kinda relieved. I've been trying to re-learn the new Flex (been about 6 years since I last coded for Flex) and I'm just not having time. Javascript is something I have more recent experience with so now I just gotta get up to speed with Dojo.

It'll be interesting either way.

Yes, I agree with the mobile revolution concept.  Oddly enough I started out with JavaScript years ago and moved to Flex.  Now I am going to have to go back to JavaScript.

I just don't understand why they might totally scrap something that works.  Not all projects are designed for the mobile world nor ever intend to be due to work policies, etc.

It would be nice if they passed it over to the open source community to keep things alive, however if Adobe is going to retire the SWF, then that would change everything.

Thanks for the comments.

BrianO_keefe · Answer

I get it. In a growing mobile environment ESRI (and hopefully everyone else) wants to see development focus on tools and technology that will include more users rather than exclude. Flash/Flex has been highly restrictive in this nature.

I remember reading something recently about ADOBE eventually planning on retiring the SWF as well, moving to a fully HTML5-interactive Flash/Flex environment. I get the feeling they'll try to make the IDE the same but the output is HTML5 compliant versus SWF files. *shrugs*

Either way, I'm kinda relieved. I've been trying to re-learn the new Flex (been about 6 years since I last coded for Flex) and I'm just not having time. Javascript is something I have more recent experience with so now I just gotta get up to speed with Dojo.

It'll be interesting either way.