[osflash] Disseminating OSFlash (was IDE mon amour, the poll results.)

[Tim Scollick]

Ray,

I'm not saying that it's difficult to use OSFlash tools, I'm merely stating
that lacking documentation that considers more than one technology at a time
(tools and code) creates a barrier to using the tools.  Think about what
Carlos' article about getting started did for OSFlash over a year ago.  It
was helpful because it gave you a step by step process to get things running
fast with MTASC, swfmill and ASDT.  But you have to go off OSFlash to find
it.

Open source projects are generally more difficult to get going than
commercial products and developers are accepting of that fact.  However, the
most successful OS projects do a great job at this 'getting started' stuff
(Haxe comes to mind).  Ruby on Rails isn't better than a lot of web
frameworks.  It gets it's a lot of it's buzz because when you go to the
homepage, you can click one of three buttons to get started.  Twenty minutes
later, you're at hello world.

I just thought of this now, but maybe OSFlash needs a page like
this<http://rubyonrails.org/down>linked from a big icon on the main
OSFlash page.  What do you guys think?

Regards,


Tim


On 9/5/06, Ray Chuan <rctay89 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 9/5/06, Tim Scollick <tim.scollick at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm also in this boat, Ralf.  Look at how many java developers are
> piling on
> > Flex, most of whom have never learned the Flash IDE.  You could do the
> same
> > thing now with OSFlash tools (ASDT or FlashDevelop) and ActionStep or
> > ASWing, but the learning curve is very steep because 'getting started'
> > guides are difficult to find.
>
> Are you referring to code or tools? Granted, code may be more
> difficult without "getting started" guides, but tools are rather
> easier. You can guess what it does by running it without any options
> or /? or --help.
>
> >
> > On 9/5/06, hank williams <hank777 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I agree with mark on this.
> > >
> > > Hank
> > >
> > > On 9/5/06, Mark Winterhalder <mark13 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Yes, the Flash IDE makes it much easier to understand the principles
> > > > we consider basic -- after all, you've got them visually in front of
> > > > you, can experiment with MovieClip hierarchies easily, and so on.
> But
> > > > it's not always an option, and not always necessary.
> > > > I don't see the osflash projects as a mere extension to the Adobe
> > > > tools. Depending on what you want to do and what kind of background
> > > > you have, they can be a true alternative. In any case, whe shouldn't
> > > > lock out developers without a "classical" Flash background.
> > > > Of course every prominent developer started with the Flash IDE --
> > > > until recently there was no viable alternative if you wanted to
> > > > produce an SWF. Well, thinking about it, I don't know if you
> consider
> > > > Daniel prominent, but if MTASC hadn't given him the opportunity to
> > > > create SWFs on Linux, he wouldn't have gotten into it and wouldn't
> > > > have come up with swfmill. His experience with the IDE is limited to
> > > > downloading the trial and then never using it because he didn't like
> > > > to reboot to Windows.
> > > > What I'm trying to say is that we can only gain from opening up to
> > > > developers from other backgrounds without insisting on them learning
> > > > it the classical way, just because "it was always done like that".
> The
> > > > threshold should be as low as possible.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 9/5/06, Ralf Bokelberg < ralf.bokelberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Hm, it was always my understanding, that osflash grew out of the
> need
> > > > > for tools, which Macromedia/Adobe couldn't oder didn't want to
> > > > > provide. Naturally these tools are not for beginners. That's what
> the
> > > > > Flash ide is for. I think, if you never get your hands dirty in
> the
> > > > > Flash ide, you are missing something, esspecially as a beginner.
> Every
> > > > > prominent developer started with the flash ide. Remember, it's not
> > > > > that i want to sell the Flash ide. It's about learning and
> > > > > understanding the whole concept of flash, eg. timelines, frames,
> etc.
> > > > > I think, if you never worked with the Flash ide, you'll never
> > > > > understand Flash completely.
> > > > >
> > > > > So the point is, people should start with the Flash ide, and if
> they
> > > > > encounter serious problems in their workflow, they should come
> back to
> > > > > osflash and see, what solutions are provided.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > Ralf.
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > osflash mailing list
> > > > osflash at osflash.org
> > > > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
> > > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > osflash mailing list
> > > osflash at osflash.org
> > > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > osflash mailing list
> > osflash at osflash.org
> > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Ray Chuan
>
> _______________________________________________
> osflash mailing list
> osflash at osflash.org
> http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://osflash.org/pipermail/osflash_osflash.org/attachments/20060905/759162ee/attachment-0001.htm