This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Weiqi Gao. Original Post: He's Been Thinking In Java, Now He's Thinking In Flex Feed Title: Weiqi Gao's Weblog Feed URL: http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/rss.xml Feed Description: Sharing My Experience... Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Weiqi Gao Latest Posts From Weiqi Gao's Weblog

I read Bruce Eckel's books and blogs. I usually agree with what he says. So naturally I read Bruce's latest blog article Hybridizing Java seriously.

What I didn't realize was that Bruce was also working as a spokesman for Adobe in its Flex 2 advertising campaign until I spotted the Flash advertisement on some technology website. I didn't remember which site I spotted the ad on, however I did save a link to the actual swf file.

I don't know how many people have read the article without seeing the ad, or how many people have seen the ad without reading the article. For me, reading the article first without any knowledge of his role in the ad campaign, and then seeing the ad popping up, gave me somewhat of a surprise. And, maybe I'm being a little bit of oversensitive, it works to completely negate whatever impact Bruce's article had on me. For example, after reading the article, especially the following assessment of Flex:

Bruce Eckel: Of course, if my dream is to be able to learn a single GUI system in depth, is Flex the right tool, since it was originally designed for web RIAs?

A Flex UI can initiate communication with its server, or any other server it chooses. A server cannot initiate communication with a Flex UI, which makes sense because of security (it would be effectively the same as having an open port on your machine).

However, a Flex UI is not limited to communicating with a server. It can also communicate with a local application. Thus, you can create an application in any language you prefer, even a dynamic language like Python or Ruby, and use Flex to build a beautiful UI.

Adobe is developing a new tool called Apollo, a cross-OS runtime that allows you to use Flex to create desktop RIAs. This means that your Flex skills can be further employed for creating smooth desktop applications, but it also means that you can more easily build applications that will work on both web and desktop (I���ve seen expensive and difficult-to-use tools that allow other languages to do this).

I went as far as to have registered with Adobe's website and downloaded the Flex 2 SDK. I was about to give it a whirl this weekend to see if I like it. Then I saw the ad, and my mind went, "Wait a minute! If Bruce is doing a celebrity product endorsement gig for Adobe Flex 2, how objective could his assessment be? Especially since he did not disclose his connection with Adobe in the article."

They almost had me.

(Since I haven't played with Flex 2 yet, I don't know enough about it to say whether it's good or bad. But judging from the amount of Flash content on the web, I'd imagine it to be pretty good. Bruce's assessment may still be accurate. His criticism of Java is certainly on the mark. I wish the Java community take Bruce's criticism as motivation to improve the platform.)