1 - One Solid Flex Release 2.0.1
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Published
Thursday, January 04, 2007
at
9:06 PM
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One Solid Flex Release 2.0.1...
No more numbers or cryptic blog posts!
Let's talk about Flex Builder 2.0.1, the best release of Flex ever. If you are making Flex applications, this release is a must have on many levels. 2.0.1 is 80% quality and 20% key features in support for runtime CSS, modules, and support for OSX. There are lots of engineers and beta customers that worked hard to make this release of Flex the very best.
So let's back up a bit and look back over the past release. The Flex 2.0.0 release was massive. The release saw simultaneous release of Flex SDK, Flex Builder, Flex Data Services, MXML and ActionScript 3 compilers, Flash Player 9 including a JIT compiler, completely new player APIS, DOM Events, an E4X implementation, Binary Sockets, an entire suite of re-written components, and amazing documentation and examples. 2.0.0 release was serious and very large. But there were things we missed, things that could only be found when larger scale development started atop Flex in the real world. As hard as you try, software is a science of imperfection and only with lots of eyes and real-world use can quality be improved. Software does not get better in a vacuum, it improves because people use it and find issues and report them. The nature of 2.0.1 was to remove barriers holding developers back and delivery a hardened and polished release ready for serious development. I believe that with 2.0.1 Flex has really arrived. This is why I did a countdown and why I am very excited about the release.
We didn't stop at quality though, we added some new things to Flex. We added features that development teams need to be successful on large projects cross-platform. These features push things beyond a dot release in my mind, the #1 in 2.0.1 really means something. So lets talk about the features that I am excited about:
1. Runtime CSS - Load CSS and style your application on the fly. Before this CSS was baked into apps at compile time. Many developers requested runtime style support and flex team delivered.
2. Modules - Thanks Roger! Modules allow Flex applications and logic to be broken into smaller chunks and loaded at runtime. This is really the addition of distributed components into Flex. Modules support a high and low level interface in that they can be as simple as loading an SWF, or as complex implementing the Factory pattern. In a nutshell, they rock and get my vote for the coolest feature.
3. Ready for Apollo - Flex 2.0.1 was modified in preparation for Apollo in several ways. The team looked at several features needed for Apollo's success and these were added to Flex 2.0.1. The 2.0.1 release supports (not included) the Apollo development plug-in that makes creation of Apollo apps easy. Duane has some photos of this on his blog. Best way to put it, 2.0.1 paves the way for the Apollo preview release later this year.
If you are looking to create Apollo applications, then Flex 2.0.1 is ready to support you today. If you download the Flex 2.0.1 SDK or Builder you will have access to what I believe is the primary development toolset for Apollo. Want to leverage Apollo? Then it is time to learn Flex.
4. OSX - I switched to OSX 3 months ago because I got access to Flex Builder on the MAC. I have zero need for Windows now and the only remaining winXP machine is my presentation laptop. Java on OSX is first class and you will find that Flex Builder is much more stable on Mac than on Windows. The JVM on OSX is dramatically better and with extra RAM and edited JVM settings, OSX Flex Builder is the best IDE I have used. The extensibility of Eclipse, the rock solid performance of OSX on x86 adds up to a great toolset. I am very proud to be attending my first MacWorld next week and I will be demoing on my MacBook Pro with pride. It took Flex Builder going to OSX to allow me to switch platforms and ditch Windows for good.
I am taking the Flex countdown to 1 now and await the final go ahead to post the new Flex badge. I thank you for your patience on the Flex Countdown and I hope the postings have been a pleasant diversion from my normal banter. No more counting, it is time to code some Flex 2.0.1.
Best part about this release? Notice there isn't a new Flash Player? This will be a trend to watch moving forward. Now that the base stack of Flex is rock solid in player/compiler/language it is time to start development of higher level Flex. The plan is to deliver on the same player and make the development model even better. More on this in the near future...
Go Flex!
Kudos to the Flex Team!
Kudos to Flex Developers!
Go Flex!
Ted :)
Flex 2.0.1 Builder two OSX
1+1 . 1-1 . 1-0...
We are really close to go live on the Flex 2.0.1 download. Sorry for the confusion here we are almost ready for go time.
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