The Flex Show - Episode 3: Simeon Bateman Interview Part 2

This (#3) was the best podcast of the 3. Adding a guest was a good idea. The discussion got into interesting depth on topics such as frameworks. For improvments, I think you could put more effort into defining things. For example when defining scaffolding in the last talk, Simeon basically defined scaffolding by saying it was a tool for generation. Well, what the hell is generation! :) But, keep it up, I really like to hear about new tools and philosophies.

One question that I think you could answer is 'Why use flex rather than flash authoring tool?' From blogs that I've read, there seems to be a growing consensus that people use them both together. But, in the Pittsburgh Flash user's group to which I belong there is a lack of enthusiasm for Flex despite an appreciation for ActionScript 3. It seems like there are some clear pros and cons to both and it would be helpful to developers / designers if you spent some time exploring them.

In my work, I build Flash components for an audience of researchers. They are able to use the componetns to build small applications without programming. Therefore, I am bound to the Flash authoring tool (FlexBuilder notwithstanding). But, I would like to develop in Eclipse and be free of the automation limits of the Flash authoring tool (e.g., no Ant, no scripting of component compilation). Because of my constrains I have NOT spent a significant amount of time learning Flex. But, I'm am cautiously optimistic that Flex 2 will play nice with Flash Authoring Tool 9 and that the Flex components will work in the Authoring Tool. I read a blog entry that Flash Authoring Tool 9 will come with a new set of components built with ActionScript 3.0 but the author was coy about questions whether these new components will share a code base and / or be interchangable with Flex components. It would help me plan if there was better information out there about how these tools will integrate.