Flex Builder 4 Refactored to Flash Builder
The next version of our IDE, Flex Builder, will be called Flash Builder 4.
There is already available a public beta for Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst (check Adobe Labs for downloads).
Mihai Corlan (Platform Evangelist for Adobe):
“At the same time, we will not change the name of Flex Builder 3. This will stay as it is now. Furthermore, the names of the Flex framework, and the Flex SDK, remain unchanged. The same goes for Flash Professional, which remains unchanged.”
….
“This has happened to me more than once. When I ask people at conferences “Who’s a Flex developer?” many people are unsure how to answer. Why? Because some of you are using the Flex framework, to create Flex or AIR applications, and not our IDE (Flex Builder), some of you are using Flex Builder, but without using the Flex framework (you use ActionScript 3 to create Flash applications). Thus the uncertainty.
Of course, the correct answer is this: anyone who uses the Flex framework, is a Flex developer. It doesn’t matter what tools you use to create these applications. At the same time, any Flex application gets compiled into a SWF file, which is played by the Flash Player. The same happens with the applications written using ActionScript and not the Flex framework.
So looking at it from this perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense. Have the developer tool that is used for creating Flash/AIR applications with or without the Flex framework called Flash Builder 4.”
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For me this is one of those marketing tricks to get more attention. I have seen this during my three years at Sun. This is a bad behavior of the guys who don’t really understand the customers. Finally, the Sun customers kept the first set name. Although, the marketing guys changed the name every year. Pretty annoying to the sales (support) force.
So, now I’m a Flash developer instead of a Flex developer? Makes no sense to me. Flex is a trademark that differentiates the real developers from the designers. It’s a sign of quality, because a Flex developer is able to think in Java backends, too
. And that’s what the Flex Builder really stands for (or the Eclipse behind, if you so will).
Hi Rainer,
I have to agree with you.
When you say you are a Flash developer people think at you mostly as a designer and not as a “real” developer.
Maybe this is why, when Flex Builder came up, most of the Flash developers could not understand how thinks are going on and they quit trying to learn Flex.
I had the surprise to see Flash developers not being able to do minor things with Flex, and telling that flex is too “programmatic”.
Anyway… the main idea is that all of us… flash, dreamwaver, catalyst, flex … developers will be in the same bucket… and maybe someday we will not
be called flex developers anymore.. but “Adobe XXX-technology developers”.
Anyway.. i hate Flash because I am a developer, and I will be still calling myself as a FLEX Developer.