Birds of a Feather: Silverlight, Flex and JavaFX
It should come as no surprise when I say that the hype surrounding the introductions of Microsoft’s Silverlight, Adobe’s Flex, and Sun’s JavaFX helped inspire me to create this blog. So, over the course of the next couple of months, I’ll spread my time evenly between each of these application run-times, chronicling my experience and passing it along to my readers. As a developer whom regularly dedicates his free time to researching all the different variations and interpretations of MVC in the web layer, I look forward to seeing how these technologies abate (or increase 
) the pain of writing browser-based applications.
So, without further ado, let me introduce our new friends.
Introducing Silverlight, Flex and JavaFX
…not that it’s necessary . Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ve probably already heard of at least one of these new technologies. However, for those cave-dwellers among us, I will say that these three technologies embody a set of runtimes, tools and languages that allow developers to create vector-based, animated and choreographed (read: highly interactive) user-interfaces. Differing in origin, yet only diverging slightly in aim, each brings a unique approach to next-gen RIA development: Silverlight brings the power of the .NET framework and XAML directly to the browser. Flex builds upon its already strong ActionScript foundation by providing a way to declaratively create user interfaces with their new XML based language, MXML. And, JavaFX ditches XML all together, using a new scripting language and classes dedicated to vector graphics and animation. I could spend a week just posting overviews of each technology, while only barely scratching the surface. So, rather than bore you with my long-winded descriptions, I decided to provide links to the best long-winded descriptions I could find on-line . Over the coming weeks, I will post tutorials, guides and also try to uncover any gotchas in working with these platforms. I’ve got some cool stuff planned, so check regularly for updates.
Silverlight
I recently read a review of Balmer’s USA Today interview at the University of Washington in which the reviewer mentioned that Balmer’s “lowest functionality, lowest capability applications of all time” jab at Google’s on-line productivity applications, shows that Balmer doesn’t “get it” because he fails to understand the advantage of Google’s distribution model and price over Microsoft Office. But, I think Silverlight proves that SOMEONE at Microsoft DOES indeed get it. They know that if Microsoft wants to uphold their stance on the superior experience of “desktop-like” applications, they will need to provide developers the tools to deliver these applications using the browser as a distribution mechanism. And, since Silverlight overlaps with WPF, developers have an easy migration path to bring their applications back down to the desktop.
If you want to learn more about Silverlight, please look at the links below:
Microsoft’s Silverlight Homepage
Wikipedia entry for Silverlight
The Silverlight Learning Guide
Top Ten Reasons to Use Silverlight
Silverlight.net
Flex
Some might say, “too little, too late”, but I believe Adobe employed some wickedly smart people to spearhead this Adobe/Macromedia love-child. They’re making smart moves (open sourcing parts of the platform, handing the JS engine over to Mozilla, building an ecosystem, etc.) and making them fast. With the added benefit of platform maturity and a widely distributed runtime, Flex took off like a speeding bullet and I expect its growth to continue. Add Apollo to the mix, and we might just see Adobe give Microsoft a run for their WPF money.
Here’s a few Flex related links for further reading:
Adobe Flex Developer Center
Wikipedia entry for Adobe Flex
On Flex
Cflex
The Architecture of Flash (SchobleShow)
JavaFX
I remember racing over to Chris Oliver’s blog months ago upon hearing about F3. I feel no shame in saying I let the ooos and aaahhs flow freely. Chris’ discussion about developing a “GUI builder that doesn’t suck” hit home with my own personal research and included phrases like “project the model into a form that was suitable to bind to the widgets” and “declaratively project multi-valued attributes”, phrases virtually guaranteed to get me all hot and bothered. As the story goes, F3 morphed into the JavaFX scripting language which ditches the XML focus of its competitors and hopes to make Java relevant again in the browser delivered RIA space.
The JavaFX hype is just beginning, but here are a few sites to get you started:
Sun’s JavaFX HomePage
Open JavaFX
Chris Oliver’s Blog
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