
FlexJS: MXML and ActionScript to run natively in the browser without Flash - riqbal
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/FlexJS
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kevinSuttle
Ha! Talk about serendipity. [http://kevinsuttle.com/posts/jsx-2-adobe-
flex](http://kevinsuttle.com/posts/jsx-2-adobe-flex)

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jsjohnst
As someone who actually liked AS3 (and to a lesser extent MXML), but loathes
the Flash runtime, this is kinda exciting. Can't wait to try this when it's
more than just a PoC.

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joshtynjala
FlexJS is actually beyond PoC at this point, but the docs are proving to be
slow to catch up. The contributors have been discussing doc improvements on
the mailing list recently, and I think once the content is better fleshed out,
the perception of the project's maturity will be way different. You should
check it out, ask questions on the mailing list, and point out what seems
especially missing in the docs.

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jsjohnst
Thanks for the tip. Guess that's what I get for depending on the docs and not
reading the code.

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0x0
I take it this does not bring any of the flash.* actionscript APIs nor any
support for Flash SWF sprites, nor the flex 1/2/3/4 UI components, since they
are talking about a <js:xyz/> set of libraries. So this is slightly
interesting in its own, but leaves a lot of work on the table for anyone
looking to porting existing flex apps.

~~~
joshtynjala
If you're interested in the Flash runtime APIs, someone's working on an open
source project that implements them for ActionScript compiled with FlexJS.

[https://github.com/matrix3d/spriteflexjs](https://github.com/matrix3d/spriteflexjs)

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fineline
This looks great, although roughly 5 years too late.

Adobe's late 2011 communications around the Flash/Flex platform and the
ensuing alienation and loss of a large developer community must go down as one
of the low-points in corporate planning and communication.

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carlosrovira
Apache FleJS is getting more and more interesting each month. Now with 0.7.0
release it got many things up like maven build, debugging with AS3, NodeJS
integration, Visual Studio Code extension, and many others...

Unlike other JS frameworks, FlexJS is a complete technology composed of
languages (AS3/MXML), compilers, frameworks, and is development cost is
greater than others, but as things are coming into place the wait is worth it
:).

I recommend you to join and play a little with technology! :)

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darkmarmot
I wish they'd focus on the Flash/AS3 part and drop MXML. AS3 (aka DOA
ECMAscript v4) was a pretty solid language offering the flexibility of JS with
native classes and types that were optional... The declarative aspects of MXML
were beneficial but half-baked IMO.

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hatsix
I disagree... looking at the rise of JSX and HTMLBars, MXML was, if anything,
ahead of it's time. Being able to compose a page of components allowed for a
clear understanding of the composition hierarchy, while allowing for
structural components (like tabs) that have their children defined by the
parent.

MXML is a key part of why Flex as so popular... AS3 helped, but Flex let teams
of developers and designers work on projects... something that couldn't be
managed w/ JS frameworks of-the-time.

If all you want is AS3's features, look into TypeScript.

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camwest
I agree MXML and the Flex Component model feel very similar to JSX and the
React Component model. For example take a look at the way the MXML Component
Lifecycle worked: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2588503/mxml-component-
li...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2588503/mxml-component-life-cycle)

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Marazan
As a long time Flex developer who has a lot of affection for the technology
I'm was not hugely impressed by how a dev would implement an app that would
render to HTML5 in FlexJS.

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jawngee
OpenLazlo was a flex-alike that targeted flash and dhtml (yup, dhtml) but is
no longer amongst the living. I shipped a project with it a long time ago.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLaszlo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLaszlo)

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crudbug
ActionScript was a viable answer to introducing optional Types on JavaScript.
NIH syndrome got this one.

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Illniyar
I don't know if NIH is applicable here, ActionScript 3 adopted the optional
type syntax of what was supposed to be ES4 , not the other way around (I
think).

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crudbug
Dart / TypeScript / Flow are trying to fix the same problems.

Also, I see React with JSX repeating what MXML (AS3) / FXML (JavaFX) did 10
years back.

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pitaj
FXML is only 5 years old, and acts more like HTML than JSX.

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ivanb
The rationale of this project is unclear to me. For existing Flex projects one
should just continue to use regular Flex on Flash and try to slowly migrate to
modern JavaScript.

Irregardless of the target platform new projects should never be started on
Flex nowadays.

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tvwonline
The fact this was written on April 1st doesn't mean anything to anyone?

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ed
It appears to be a real project - [https://github.com/apache/flex-
asjs](https://github.com/apache/flex-asjs)

