Flash: The Future

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1886411964/jasondunn-20">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1886411964/jasondunn-20</a><br /><br />Want to create Flash-based applications for devices? Flash: The Future is a new book by Jon Warren Lentz, Ian Chia, and Bill Turner. All are Flash heavy weights, so if you want to learn how to program for devices like Pocket PCs, DVD players, Game Consoles, and wireless devices.<br /><br /><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1886411964.01._PE30_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" /><br /><br />"FLASH: THE FUTURE is the most comprehensive guide to developing Flash applications for Internet-enabled devices and platforms. Readers learn how to design Flash applications for Pocket PCs; develop games for different portable devices; integrate Flash with Microsoft eVB and eVC business applications; and create Flash for DVD and interactive TV playback. The CDROM includes code and examples from the book, plus bonus developer tools for Pocket PC."

[ThomasC22]

Eh...with more serious players like the .NET Compact Framework entering this area in a big way I doubt Flash is going to stand much of a chance in the long run. Because of that, I'm not sure I'd really advise people to waste their time learning Flash.

[Ian Chia]

Actually, as a serious developer with skills in many different languages, I feel strongly that Flash can offer much that .NET Compact Framework can't provide.

Consider the following:

- Flash is a media-rich, internet connected rapid application development platform. .NET CF is not. Want to play MP3s synched with animations? Do it in 5 min in Flash. It would take a few orders of magnitude to achieve the same in .NET CF.

- Flash ActionScript is based on ECMAScript, with a range of custom enhancements for the multimedia technology. This means that beginners can pick it up pretty easily, intermediate developers can do great things with it, and sophisticated developers can use it to *integrate* with eVC/eVB/.NET CF (which our book explains) to get the best of both worlds. Flash to do the media rich user interface presentation, and a range of internet connectivity services, and a local application wrapper that hooks into native Windows CE APIs.

- Flash is pretty much write-once, play anywhere technology. It works on the desktop under Windows, MacOS, *Nix and on a range of devices including Palm OS5 (bundled in the new Sony PEG-NX70V CLIE), Pocket PCs, a range of interactive TV set-tops, the Nokia 9200, and some game consoles. .NET most definitely isn't. This means that content and application developers can write an app, and repurpose it pretty easily cross multiple markets.

- Flash caters to both animator/designers and developers/programmers. With Flash 6, features like streaming video/audio and web service remoting is built into the language, so a single rich internet media app can all be done in Flash.

.NET Compact Framework provides a range of very useful things, like datasource integration, hooks to native APIs which Flash doesn't have. But on the other hand, Flash allows many people to build applications, games and animations who wouldn't otherwise have perhaps the skills, time or return on investment to do it using eVC or .NET etc. I actually have companies coming to me who've evaluated a eVC solution and found the development time and cost to be far outweighed by a Flash-based solution, and my answer is often: "Let's build an integrated solution that offers the best of both worlds." Customer is happy - they save money, it's a shorter time to market, and most of all, it looks far better than an eVC/eVB or .NET solution would've provided.

Plus .NET CF still isn't here. Flash is here now. And it works. Take a look at some images of apps that we'll be releasing publicly in the coming weeks.
http://flashthefuture.com/6
and a sample web services app at:
http://www.hyperphonic.com/wordfind/demo

Maybe you've only seen "bad" Flash (I won't spell out all the atrocious examples.) But Flash is now a serious technology. Just last week, my company released a scientific online polling application for ABC7News.com that's built fully in Flash on the client side. It has video and uses web services to communicate to the backend, but never pops up any other media player. It's a single fully integrated app. This is not even possible yet with .NET Compact Framework, but it will be with Flash 6 on the Pocket PC (which was sneak peeked by Macromedia this week.) And I won't have to change a line of code. I just need to rearrange my UI to fit into 240x320.

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
(OK - off my soapbox now. &lt;g>)

Cheers,

- Ian
http://flashthefuture.com/news

[ThomasC22]

Well, what can I say, you haven't convinced me that Flash is a viable solution for the future, but you've opened my mind enough to buy your book :)

I'll tell you what I think.

[Tari Akpodiete]

greetings Ian - could you please get in touch with me - [email protected] or [email protected] - thanks!