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May 26, 2009
The change from Fx prefix to namespaces is an EPIC FAIL for Flex
I borrowed the title from Aral's original post, couldn't think of a better one.
I don't know Flex as much as some do, but I know other things and I know Aral. So what can I add to his excellent post?
People defending the change mention a voting by community. I have a problem with this.
Public/community vote at best can get you to the mean. If you have no idea, no vision, just listen to the community and you will soon become the average.
Leading products are not developed this way. True leaders don't work this way.
You should have a vision and you should evaluate each change according to that vision. If you want to sell more products and make more money, in the short term, (or if you have no vision of your own) it's fine to be lead by the community.
Sometimes you act against the wishes of the community, that's when truly wonderful things happen, and the community appreciates it in the end. Of course, this is the risky option, but it's the only option that may bring those results.
As Aral mentions, simplicity is a key factor. The problem is not 'not making things more complicated', it is ' making thing simpler'. AS3 already has a steep learning curve compared to easy use nature of AS1/2. This is a problem on the table, that hasn't been addressed yet (I expected at least some work towards this with CS4).
Both Adobe and Microsoft tried to beat Flash in the past, and failed miserably. You can't beat MS by trying to be more like MS. You can't beat Java or .Net by trying to be more like them. Does Flash/Adobe wants to beat Java in the first place? Do they have the vision? I've been losing my faith in that lately.
Addendum:
I must add, I don't think 'Fx' was a good choice as a prefix. Too long and sounds like 'effects'...
May 26, 2009 in Flex | Permalink
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Comments
You may be over-simplifying things.
Obviously "listening to the community" is not only about following the will of the majority or taking votes on things.
Obviously there where people inside the Flex team strongly pushing for this and the reason they opened room for an external opinion was that the could not reach a consensus among themselves.
I think this has showed up clearly to all( well, most) of those who really followed the entire process of the prefix drop.
Posted by: jay at May 26, 2009 8:38:26 PM
If I remember correct, the response was overwhelmingly AGAINST the Fx prefix.
In that perspective I dont think what they did was wrong. It would have been incredibly stupid of them to first open the whole process, and then ignore the feedback completely.
What would the "average" response in this case be? How do you average a yes or no answer!?
The change was made, there was a massive negative feedback, and they took community input into account and did the right thing.
This is an SDK, using Name-spaces is a more evolved approach, and will work out better in the future. It is being created FOR the developers, and will be used by them.
Saying that this decision is wrong BECAUSE it is based on community feedback doesn't make sense! Look at the decision, and the impact of the decision not how or why it was made.
Posted by: Kshitij Sobti at May 26, 2009 9:41:53 PM
@Jay
> could not reach a consensus among themselves.
Then this may be a sign of a worse situation we have. This is quite a simple matter, if you ask me.
@Kshitij Sobti
> What would the "average" response in this case be?
Obviously, in this case, average response is what majority says.
> Saying that this decision is wrong BECAUSE it is based on community feedback doesn't make sense!
Exactly. You cannot defend it for the same reason.
Community feedback is only usually wrong and such decisions should not take community feedback into consideration at all.
> using Name-spaces is a more evolved approach
I totally disagree with that. If Namespaces are evolved approach then this is a backwards evolution, like man to monkey.
> created FOR the developers, and will be used by them
Again, what does this mean? Are you implying that users will know everything better because they will be using them? How qualified are these users?
Thanks for the comments.
Posted by: Burak KALAYCI at May 26, 2009 10:20:13 PM
