Apache FlexThe Way Forward

Justin McleanClass Software

Email: justin@classsoftware.comTwitter: @justinmcleanBlog: http://blog.classsoftware.com

Who am I?• Director of Class Software for 15 years

• Developing and creating web applications for 15 years

• Programming for 25 years

• Adobe certified developer and trainer in Flex and ColdFusion

• Adobe Community Professional

• Apache Flex PPMC member and committer

• 120

It’s been an interesting few months for Flex Developers

Adobe MAX 2011• Keynotes focused on HTML and Flash for

gaming and video

• Sessions included Flex and Flash roadmaps for the next several versions

• New Flex features show in sessions (e.g. new spark components) and sneak peaks

• No mention of any upcoming announcements (including the community summit)

November Announcement• Adobe announces restructure and lays

off 750 staff

• Adobe press release apocalypse!

• “Flash is dead”/”Apple was right” response from most of the IT media

• Adobe clarified some points in various blog posts over the next week

November Outcome• No future Flash Player for mobile

browsers (Android) after 11.1

• Mobile focus will be on AIR for app stores

• Flex proposal to Apache Software Foundation

• Future versions of Flash Builder will have Flex support

• Flex 4.6 SDK and FP 11.1 releases

Apache Donation• Flex SDK (including automation and data

visualisation)

• Actionscript and MXML compilers

• New spark components

• BlazeDS

• Flex testing tools

• New generation compiler (Falcon)

Flex Summit• Invite only of customers and community

members (mainly US)

• Broadcast online and wider community questions (thanks to Spoon)

• Adobe will no longer sign framework RSLs

• Flash Catalyst dropped

• Design view in Flash Builder dropped

• Falcon timeline late 2012 then Falcon JS

Apache Flex

• Proposal was accepted

• Initial committers and PPMC set up

• Mailing list setup

• Incubator site setup

• New Flex logo voted on

Flex White Paper

• Clarifies Adobe position on the future of Flex

• Give good reasons to continuing to use Flex

Flex Tour

• Tour of user groups by Adobe evangelists

• Spoon helping out to add some community involvement

• US and Europe tour underway

• South America and Asia/Pacific dates to be announced

Flash White Paper

• Flash as a gaming and video platform

• Sets out roadmap of next 3 versions of the Flash Player

• Flash Player “Next” due early 2013 will have AS improvements/changes

• Flash and Chrome on Linux

Why has this happened?• iOS would never support Flash in a browser

• Unable to keep up with growing number of platforms

• Most frameworks are open source

• Previous Flex open source model was broken

• Adobe was unable to work out a way to make money out of Flex

Summary• Adobe to focus on Flash tooling, gaming and

video

• Adobe to use AIR to target mobile

• 11.1 last Flash Player on Android mobile browser

• CS5.5 last version of Flash Catalyst

• 4.6 SDK is the last official version of the Flex SDK

• No design view in next version Flash Builder

• No signed framework RSLs

Flex is now Apache Flex!

What is Apache?

Apache Software Foundation

• US non profit organisation

• Run by volunteers

• Individuals not companies

• 100 software projects

• Apache web server

• ANT, Axis2, Derby, Maven, Struts, Solr, Subversion, Tomcat, Xerces

Mission

• Provides free open source software

• Licence business friendly

• Provides project infrastructure

• Legal protection

Apache Way

• Collaborative software development

• Open discussion and development

• Merit driven

• Consensus driven

Apache Way in Practice

• Email list and archive

• Not on the mailing list it doesn't happen

• Lazy consensus

• Scratch your own itch

• Prove yourself

• Commit then review for low risk changes

Roles

• Users

• Contributors

• Committers

• PPMC/PMC

• Mentors

• Members

What is the Spoon Project?

The Spoon Project

• Initially a friendly fork of the Flex SDK

• Initial focus was on making the Flex SDK unit testable

• Put in lots hard work to convince Adobe this was a good idea

• Just about to get full steam when Adobe PR apocalypse happens!

Spoon Involvement

• Several Spoon members are committers and PPMC members of Apache Flex

• Spoon will fill in gaps between Adobe and Apache

• Helping getting community involved in Adobe events

• Organising some upcoming events

Old Spoon

Apache Donation

Future Spoon

Apache Flex Progress

Current Status• Incubation site and wiki set up

• Flex SDK framework has been donated

• Still waiting legal clarence on other donations

• Mailing list set up and has heavy traffic

• SVN set up and working (with history)

• JIRA setup and working

• JIRA import of existing Adobe bug base has issues

New Flex Logo

Can I build the SDK?• Check out trunk as new Flash builder

project

• Download Adobe OS 4.6 Flex SDK

• Copy everything except the frameworks directory

• Run (via ANT) framework_build.xml

• Real process waiting on code donation from Adobe

Javascript/HTML5 output

• Falcon JS compiler and timeframes

• May be delivered early to Apache

• Goshawk

• What about other virtual machines?

Unit Testing

• FlexUnit and Mockolate donation to Apache Flex

• Discussed changes to SDK to enable easier unit testing

• Still waiting on donation of Mustela (Adobe’s functional testing framework for the SDK)

But I use Git!

• Apache uses SVN

• Can use git-svn

• GIT mirror at http://git.apache.com

• A couple of GitHub copies

• No pull requests accepted. JIRA and patches need to be submitted.

ANT-RID

• Current build script use ANT

• Mavin

• Gradel

Locales

• Modified build script to work for multiple locales

• Locale only needs to be edited in one spot

• Locale name appears in SDK description

• en_AU and en_GB locales added

Flash Player Versions

• Build script changes to target different flash player build

• Works for Flash player 10.2,10.3,11.0,11.1 and 11.2

• Some mobile features may not work or work slowly in earlier versions of the FP

UIComponent

• Is a huge beast!

• Break up into multiple components

• Make behaviours optional

• Performance considerations

RSL security

• Adobe will not sign Apache RSLs

• With SDK easier to patch RSLs become more useful (no need for monkey patches)

• How to make RSLs secure?

Whiteboard Area• Place for committers to put ideas and

works in progress

• Tink’s navigators Coverflow, Carousel, TimeMachine, DataAccordion etciView and mobile dropdown list

• S9tpepper’s String g11n validators

• Frishy’s fast grouping datagrid

• Mschmalle’s mobile popups

Get Involved• Sign up to the mailing list

• Contribute to mailing list

• Vote on issues

• Sign up to JIRA

• Submit JIRA bugs, ideas, wishes and patches

• Review JIRA bugs and patches

• Designers are welcome it’s not just about code

But I’m not a Committer• Anyone can sign up and email the mailing list

• Anyone can create and comment on JIRA issues

• Find a friendly committer to help you or ask on the list

• You don’t have to be a committer to contribute

• If you contribute you may be invited to become a committer

Still Unresolved

• JIRA and code donation taking longer than expected

• Incubation and first parity release

• Flex name legal issues

• Automation legal issues

• Falcon and FalconJS timeframe

Flex Developers• Brush up on ANT

• Download and compile your own SDK

• Look at the source code! (try not to cringe)

• Take a peek at SVN history and comments

• Get familiar FlexUnit and Mockolate

• Consider other IDEs

• Take a look at other technologies/frameworks out there

Future of Flex• Active community with lots of ideas

• Community now decides what direction Flex goes in. It’s up to us!

• Adobe is committed to Flash as a platform

• Adobe are still involved and providing resources and developers

• Spoon Project is helping the community

• Far easier to submit and fix bugs

Links• Apache Flex site

http://incubator.apache.org/flex/

• Mailing list sign uphttp://incubator.apache.org/flex/mailing-lists.html

• Apache Flex mail archiveshttp://markmail.org/search/+list:org.apache.incubator.flex-dev

• Apache Flex JIRAhttps://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX

• Apache Flex SVN viewerhttp://svn.apache.org/viewvc/incubator/flex/trunk/

Links

• Apache Software Foundationhttp://www.apache.org/

• Spoon Projecthttp://www.spoon.as/

Adobe White Papers

• Adobe Flex white paper:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html

• Adobe Flash white paper and roadmap:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html

Ask now, see me after the session,follow me on twitter @justinmcleanor email me at justin@classsoftware.com.

Code and slides can be found athttp://blog.classsoftware.com

Questions?