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JavaOne 2006: How Adobe Can Attract Java Developers to Flex 2

To attract five million Java developers, they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free
By Yakov Fain
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May 18, 2006 12:30 PM EDT
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 40,034
JavaOne 2006: How Adobe Can Attract Java Developers to Flex 2

Flex 2 is a good technology for development of rich Internet applications, and Adobe is already making some serious changes in the  pricing policy to bring Flex 2  to masses. But to make it attractive to five million of professional Java developers they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free. Java developers enjoy a variety of excellent free Java IDE such as Eclipse, NetBeans and JDeveloper. Expensive IDEs like JBuilder or RAD are only  used by some filthy rich corporations. An excellent IntellijIDEA IDE is not expensive, but  it has very modest market share: Java developers are  spoiled by  good open source products.

Each time I talk to Java developers about Flex 2, the first question they ask, “Is it  free?” I answer that even without IDE you can use a plain text editor for writing code, and  can create and run a small community-grade Web site for free using Flex command line compilers, Flex framework components and Flex Data Services on a single processor server... For existing Flex 1.5 developers Flex Builder environment is a big improvement , but Java developers have seen it all and will think twice before reaching for their wallets.

I'm not in the position of giving Adobe advice, it's just a voice from the trenches.

posted Thursday, 18 May 2006
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Published May 18, 2006 – Reads 40,034
Copyright © 2006 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Yakov Fain

Yakov Fain is a Managing Director of Farata Systems, consulting, training and product company. He has authored several Java books, dozens of technical articles. SYS-CON Books released his latest co-authored book , Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters in Spring 2007. Sun Microsystems has nominated and awarded Yakov with the title Java Champion. He leads the Princeton Java Users Group. He is an Adobe Certified Flex Instructor. Yakov co-athored the O'Reilly book "Enterprise Application Development with Flex". He twits at twitter.com/yfain.

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Most Recent Comments
YS Wong 06/26/06 10:08:01 PM EDT

not possible!
JabbyPanda 05/19/06 05:44:10 AM EDT

We are already using FDT commercial plugin to Eclipse to facilitate development in Action Script 2 for Flex 1.5.

FDT is currently priced significantly cheaper then Flex Builder 2.

Thus, may be the community will develop an IDE for Flex 2, which be have a nice set of features comparable with Flex Builder 2.
SYS-CON Italy News Desk 05/18/06 12:28:35 PM EDT

Flex 2 is a good technology for development of rich Internet applications, and Adobe is already making some serious changes in the pricing policy to bring Flex 2 to masses. But to make it attractive to five million of professional Java developers they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free.
SYS-CON India News Desk 05/18/06 12:00:54 PM EDT

Flex 2 is a good technology for development of rich Internet applications, and Adobe is already making some serious changes in the pricing policy to bring Flex 2 to masses. But to make it attractive to five million of professional Java developers they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free.
JDJ News Desk 05/18/06 11:15:34 AM EDT

Flex 2 is a good technology for development of rich Internet applications, and Adobe is already making some serious changes in the pricing policy to bring Flex 2 to masses. But to make it attractive to five million of professional Java developers they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free.