Has Bruce Eckel sold his sole to satan, I mean Adobe?

[primeattheark]

I been following the controversy caused by Bruce Eckle's recent article
posted on Java Developers Journal:

http://ajax.sys-con.com/read/333329.htm

In which he argues that the future of RIA's lies in Flash/Flex and thou he
pre-empts any accusation of bias by Stating:

"Full disclosure: I’m in the process of working out a consulting contract
with Adobe, to help them teach people about Flex. But long before this, I
became convinced that Flash, and Flex in particular, was the best solution
for the user-interface problem, and I began writing this article long before
Adobe expressed interest in my assistance)."

I can not help feeling that this is not a coincidence.

I have, largely, Bruce to thank for guidance in helping me to learn Java.
His 'Thinking Java' is far in advance of any of the material I received from
the Open University.

However, I do not believe flash has little or any advantage over Java. Some
of his arguments against java do not hold water. E.G: he believes that java
runtime is too difficult to install for the everyday user. As far as I can
tell it is no more complicated than installing flash.

I have not used flex so, maybe, he is right and flex is absolutely
revolutionary? Offering a marked improvement over other IDE development
methods.

Does Bruce expect us to just take his word that he has no bias and pull java
down at the same time?

What does everyone else think?

Rob

 

[impaler]

I been following the controversy caused by Bruce Eckle's recent article
posted on Java Developers Journal:

http://ajax.sys-con.com/read/333329.htm

In which he argues that the future of RIA's lies in Flash/Flex and thou he
pre-empts any accusation of bias by Stating:

"Full disclosure: I'm in the process of working out a consulting contract
with Adobe, to help them teach people about Flex. But long before this, I
became convinced that Flash, and Flex in particular, was the best solution
for the user-interface problem, and I began writing this article long before
Adobe expressed interest in my assistance)."

I can not help feeling that this is not a coincidence.

I have, largely, Bruce to thank for guidance in helping me to learn Java.
His 'Thinking Java' is far in advance of any of the material I received from
the Open University.

However, I do not believe flash has little or any advantage over Java. Some
of his arguments against java do not hold water. E.G: he believes that java
runtime is too difficult to install for the everyday user. As far as I can
tell it is no more complicated than installing flash.

I have not used flex so, maybe, he is right and flex is absolutely
revolutionary? Offering a marked improvement over other IDE development
methods.

Does Bruce expect us to just take his word that he has no bias and pull java
down at the same time?

What does everyone else think?

Rob

It seemed to me that he spoke a lot but said little. All I could
figure out is that he has a new source of revenue (Adobe) and Adobe
has a new marketing strategy of buying "stars" for advertisement.
Everyone bought by Macromedia (see allaire) and subsequently by Adobe
were forced to use flash. I think they have a clause in their contract
or something.

 

[Oliver Wong]

However, I do not believe flash has little or any advantage over Java.
Some
of his arguments against java do not hold water. E.G: he believes that
java
runtime is too difficult to install for the everyday user. As far as I can
tell it is no more complicated than installing flash.

In my experience, Java is more difficult to install (as a browser
plugin) than Flash. With Flash, there's a "click here to install missing
plugins" banner, and when I click on it, Flash is installed with little to
no prompting (I believe they ask if I'm older than 13 years old, and that's
about it). With Java, I have to actually download and run an installer.

It's a minor increase in difficulty, but I can see how it might be a
turn off for certain end users.

- Oliver

 

[Chris Smith]

In which he argues that the future of RIA's lies in Flash/Flex and thou he
pre-empts any accusation of bias by Stating:

"Full disclosure: I�m in the process of working out a consulting contract
with Adobe, to help them teach people about Flex. But long before this, I
became convinced that Flash, and Flex in particular, was the best solution
for the user-interface problem, and I began writing this article long before
Adobe expressed interest in my assistance)."

I can not help feeling that this is not a coincidence.

I imagine you're right that it's certainly not a coincidence. When
someone as well-known and popular as Bruce Eckel starts showing a
decided interest in a company's products, that company will almost
certainly start having dealings with that person as a result. Would you
expect otherwise?

Does Bruce expect us to just take his word that he has no bias and pull java
down at the same time?

I imagine that Bruce Eckel expects that he'll express his opinion, and
that a lot of people will weigh it heavily. I doubt he expects you to
follow him blindly. Personally, I find that I disagree with a lot of
Bruce Eckel's opinions, and his endorsement of Flex doesn't make me too
much more likely to check it out. Others will react in different ways.

 

[Chris Uppal]

I imagine you're right that it's certainly not a coincidence. When
someone as well-known and popular as Bruce Eckel starts showing a
decided interest in a company's products, that company will almost
certainly start having dealings with that person as a result. Would you
expect otherwise?

That's pretty-much exactly what I was going to say...

I imagine that Bruce Eckel expects that he'll express his opinion, and
that a lot of people will weigh it heavily. I doubt he expects you to
follow him blindly. Personally, I find that I disagree with a lot of
Bruce Eckel's opinions, and his endorsement of Flex doesn't make me too
much more likely to check it out.

I, on the other hand, tend to agree with Eckel much more often than I disagree.
And I mostly agree with his criticisms of Java, including the ones expressed in
the piece on Flex. But I did't find his arguments in favour of Flex
convincing at all. I speculate that he has been exposed to the (presumably
very enthusiastic, exited, and naturally "evangelical") people who are working
on Flex and the related technologies at Adobe -- and has been somewhat carried
away (perhaps more by what's coming than by what's available to the rest of us
today).

But then /I/ should admit to some bias here: I don't much like Adobe; I have
zero confidence in their competence or will to design for security; and I don't
have or want the Flash plugin. So I'm hardly likely to give Flex a fair
hearing or fair try.

-- chris