[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: [Majas-dev] [Majas-users] Flex in geomajas

[P Kishor]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:01 AM, Leonardo Mateo <leonardomateo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at dfc.be> wrote:
>> Sorry for the cross posting, but I found an interesting mail about
>> performance and webmapping in the majas developers list.
>>
>> Today, Geomajas is written in Java for the server part, and uses Javascript
>> in the frontend.
>> Although the performance is good enough to support a proper amount of
>> editable objects, we always are looking to mechanisms to improve the speed
>> and usability of the front end.
>>
>> Pieter has done some tests with the Flex technology and they are very
>> promising(details in his mail attached).
>> Should it be a problem for distribution that the technology is shipped in
>> the form of an installable plug-in instead of native browser technology such
>> as VML or SVG, or isn't that an issue?
>>
>> And who has experience with this technology?
>>
>> I would appreciate your feedback ...
>>
>>
> Ok, here's my grain of sand. I don't know what geomajas is, so I don't
> know how much Flex would impact on this.
> I've been working with Flex from the past two years or so, now a days
> a little less intensive, but still working. I've worked with two or
> three map API's for Flex and I have to say that totally worth it.
> About the speed, I haven't seen any benchmark bu ActionScript3 should
> be way faster than JavaScript and should work fine with large amount
> of data, wether you use raw XML or some other technology such as AMF*.
> About the downside Pieter mention there, I think in these days, the
> Flash plugin is something you should have on a browser, it is not a
> strange requirement anymore. However, you shouldn't confuse Flash with
> Flex, even when a Flex application is a Flash movie, their are used
> for completly different things and can work togheter since you can,
> from Flex, use resources from an swf made in Flash.
>
> Anyway, my opinion is: "go for it if your UI is complex enough", Flex
> allows you to build a really complex, advanced UI with advanced
> widgets that looks, performs and behaves really good. Programming AS
> is way much easier than JavaScript (I come from a JS background too)
> not to mention modularization possibilites with Flex Modules and
> Libraries also, you should reduce the browser compatibility issues in
> a 95% at least.
>
>


I too don't know what geomajas is, and Flex may or may not be the best
solutinon for it, but consider that Flex/Flash are not supported on
iPhone, and probably never will be. Actually, I don't know much about
Flash/Flex as well, but I am assuming that even though they are
different products, they produce the same SWF end result, and require
a Flash player/plugin on the client, and Flash is a huge CPU hog. Ever
since I installed ClickToFlash
(http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/) on my Macbook, I am a happy
camper.

So, if you don't mind geomajas to not be accessible to the largest
mobile web platform, Flex/Flash may well be a good solution.

-- 
Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
Sent from: Madison WI United States.