Summarizing Adobe’s Ryan Stewart’s response to critiques saying that Flex breaks the open web. I understand that Adobe has to do their best to win over the entire software community, but I for one care little about standards. They do have a role in the industry, and I wouldn’t throw them out all together. However, I think any claim that they will lead us to the future is simply wrong. Standards can only capture the lowest common denominator, and rarely if ever lead to innovation. They are the rear view mirror of what has already happened in the industry.
We need to look no further than the JCP for an example of how standards have failed the industry. The JCP sounded amazing on paper, but the reality was countless specifications that didn’t work. Is anyone still using EJB? Of course, but they are using EJB 3.0 – the rewritten specification that captured the innovation that happened outside of the standards process. I cannot think of a truly successful JSR where that isn’t how it came to be…
So, do standards matter when it comes to Flex? I would say yes and no. First off, the Flash Player is a defacto standard and the closest thing the Internet has to a truly ubiquitous runtime on the desktop/browser (Windows, Mac, and Linux). This brings us back to the lowest common denominator. If you are building an application that has to be available on all desktop and mobile platforms, they really should be using standards based technologies to ensure all of your users can access the application on the latest and greatest. On the other hand, if you are building an application for consumption through a traditional browser (or desktop with AIR), then you really should be considering Flex or some other rich client runtime (Silverlight, Java, etc…) – otherwise your users are missing out.
As with all things, it is important to choose the right technologies for what you are building, but don’t be afraid of platforms that go beyond the standards. In contrast to what seems to be the common wisdom, it is unlikely that the platform vendors are trying to screw you by including advanced features that are outside of or beyond the standards – they are probably just trying to give you the features that you need to succeed for your stakeholders.
