What about Flex ?

[Jack Norton]

Recently I tried some languages/authoring system to do webgames. I was impressed by Flex, even if I didn't try it yet. It seems like Flash but more programming-oriented, and apparently with a good IDE and debug. It is true? anyone is using it for a game? I've seen it in action on some sites, and seems very good for webgames, even if really don't understand what the difference is vs the normal Flash :o

[Rod Hyde]

I can't say that I've tried the IDE, and probably never will as the latest version of Komodo Edit (4.1) understands AS3 and MXML. The Flex SDK is pretty good. I'd go as far as to say that AS3 running in Flash Player 9 is everything that Java applets should have been, but failed to deliver.

As for the difference between Flex and Flash, this page (http://weblogs.macromedia.com/cantrell/archives/2006/01/clarifying_the.cfm) tries to explain it. Scroll down to the final post.

I also found this quote here (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/productinfo/faq/).

Flex and Flash have complementary strengths. Flash is the leading authoring tool for web developers, multimedia professionals, animators, and videographers who want to create rich interactive content. Flex 2 products enable more application developers to leverage the powerful Flash runtime to create data-driven RIAs. In addition, developers can use Flash and Flex Builder together to add rich interactive elements to a structured, Flex based application.

--- Rod

[Polycount Productions]

Flex is not suitable for making games that have need for animation. It is good for programmers to make nice looking stuff pretty easily. For Kudos or educational type of games Flex (or actually Flex 2) would be good.