The same way DOS was replaced by Linux for people that did not need Windows, AJAX/browsers will be replaced by Flash / Apollo / shells

As far as ease of development – I learned my lesson about it as well. Simplicity has its price – moving thinking process toward the end of the project. Understanding the application has more impact then the tools you have at hand. Applications that match AJAX toolkit are rare – and will become even more so. The times of AJAX are now, which means that pioneers already left the space 2 years ago.

I also believe that the best tools for most of the tasks are the ones you know best or made yourself – just keep learning. It also helps to re-read Joel Spolsky essays or “Mystical man years” from time to time to put things in perspective
Regards,
Anatole

I’m basing my crit on the fact that I’ve spent countless hours, pain and suffering building with Adobe/Macromedia products. I’m in the luxurious position of having the time to do a comparison on both sets, and that’s why I’ve held off for quite some time in broadcasting the deep dives in the products. As I’ve spent most of the time getting deeper and deeper into the web based tools Microsoft has on offer (2months in) and my original opinion stands, It’s much easier to punch out applications inside MS then it is with Adobe’s coutnerparts. I was disturbed at how easy it was to put together an AJAX ASP.NET application in comparision to Coldfusion, in both IDE and execution of OOP patterns. CF has its plus and minus but overall i’d rate ASP.NET easier to work with (that’s after 9 or so years of working with Coldfusion).

FLEX is painful, and I’ve seen a lot of people state “Flex Hurts” and your post is one of them. I’ll pick fights with folks who hate us, just because I want to get to the bottom of why, and secondly I’d prefer they do so out of their own home grown research and use with “alphas” and “betas” instead of subscribing to the mainstream channels opinion. In the case between the article you quoted, I felt that was the case. Ted’s not a fan of Microsoft for whatever the reason he decides – which is cool, I don’t have anything against that – I only jump in when I feel there is an unfair message being portrayed by a visible ranking Adobe FTE (just like they do with Microsoft and countless other companies that dare strike out against Adobe’s PR).

My hiring was a hard process to get through, 4 months of rounds to be honest. As for questioning my credentials, i’d probably respond with a question around “what is it you actually pioneer in the RIA space”

-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft – Sticks n Stones, will actually break bones if you throw them hard enough.

That being said, Flex does let you build components + animation effects faster…however this might not carry as much weight for a corporate app used by traders and wall street wonks.

For new greenfield projects that can consider a desktop client, at the moment building on an RCP is easily the winner.

Second, Flex, unlike publishing tools, is geared toward client-centric applications. Client-server old-timers will find themselves comfortable sooner then J2EE veterans. Knowledge transfer is very important unless your company is ok with SOP situation. Recognising potential and inherited risks requires full awareness and information that is hard to get out given the marketing noise level and wrong assessments.

For those of us who programmed over few generations of technologies Flex/FLash platform is a VM for going where computers never went before – with full support of the very talented and motivated Flex team and community. I think that most of the people in this community will feel very strongly about Microsoft claims of being developers oriented. For the last 10 years the only good products for new development coming from MSFT were former employees.

Personally, the attitude of evangelizing microsoft via cheap tricks like ” I’d find the most vocal person who hates us, and pick a fight, and I would do so knowing I would lose” http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/MS_Adobe_war_in_blogosphere/0,339028227,339273152,00.htm) greatly diminishes your credibility. It also speaks volumes on MSFT hiring practices for evangelist position. I would spend at least a year doing real application DEVELOPMENT experience with alphas and betas of  the products before taking on Evangelist position. You really have to believe in things you are doing to succeed yourself and make other to succeed,

Sincerely,
Anatole Tartakovsky

This is the part you don’t read in the glossay brochure, it does hurt and it does take time. Rushing out and adopting FLEX is one thing, surviving it is entirely a different challenge.

I made a post on this exact thing in Oct 2005: http://www.mossyblog.com/archives/539.cfm “Don’t gamble your career with FLEX 2.0″.

Call Microsoft what you will, but coming into the company from Adobe Development, I’ve noticed one thing above all: “It’s much easier to build in their tools then it is Adobe’s”. Adobe are focusing on the output, which is great and understand why – but – they aren’t devoting attention to the input, you the developer and that’s why people keep tripping themselves up with FLEX.

SB/Microsoft.