Ever since Adobe decided to move Flex into the Open Source world late last year, many people have been involved in discussions about the company’s move.  This decision has made some people think that Flex is dying.

When I mention Open Source to almost anyone other than a computer expert, it’s likely that the response will be: “What’s Open Source?”

To try and put it in simple words, Open Source software is free and generally available on the internet. It is also normally distributed with its underlying code, or source code, which a knowledgeable programmer can read and modify to meet specific business needs; unlike commercial software that is sold only in a compiled executable version.

Nowadays many people are giving HTML5 a shot instead of Flex because they think it’s the technology that is going to stick, but it may still be too early to switch. Most of them don’t pay much attention to the fact that, at the time this post is being written, fewer than 5 percent of browsers support HTML5. A simple search on the internet will give you several reasons to reconsider, or at least think twice, before going ahead with HTML5 as an alternative to Flex. This will most definitely change in the next couple of years, but even then it is likely that we go through  a few HTML5 iterations before it is widely supported.

I am a believer that a war between the technologies should never occur. Anyone who rules out one of the technologies is not necessarily doing you a disservice, but, as for any project, the pros and cons should always be considered. There will always be the argument to use Flex for several reasons, such as the code is much nicer, and it has far better object-oriented and pattern support.

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At the Adobe MAX 2009, it was interesting to improve my knowledge in the Test-Driven Development (TDD) and see the new features of Flash Builder 4 in action.

The Unit Test Agents of Flash Builder 4 are simplifying most of the work for you. They can be extended to higher levels just like the old FlexUnit would do, but on top everything now is included in the SDK, well integrated and well documented. TDD is very important for us when working on major or critical applications, since it  allows us to reduce errors and bugs. Even though you might increase  development time in the beginning by finding errors, incomplete or even missing functionalities, you will  end up with less problems to solve gain the time that would be spent debugging the app.

TDD is a great way to deliver with agility an almost bug-free solution in this very competitive business environment.