JQuery VS Flex - platform choice for SAAS
Our team is about to launch a SAAS web application targeted at small businesses. This is a completely new experience for us; we are a systems / linux / php development organization and have no client side software development experience other than simple html / php based CRUD support applications.
We rate both Adobe Flex and jQuery. We cannot choose between them. Our priorities:
- Performance - we need to get it up and running as soon as possible.
- Overall user experience. The resulting applications should look professional and the user should have a pleasant experience using our product. I think this is not a problem on both platforms, although we will probably automatically lose 10% of potential users who do not have a flash drive installed.
- Reuse of skills. We all need to learn the new RIA language and platform on this project and hope we can use it again for more projects. BTW, we are a software company and this is our first foray into consumer applications. We hope, however, that we will be able to use our skills for our clients.
Application characteristics:
- Data-centric - Many, many CRUD operations.
- 3-tier - the business logic will be on the PHP server and the data will be on MySQL. The RIA will provide data to the user only.
- The data available to the user will be large - that's why we decided to use RIA. We cannot refresh the page when the user just made a few changes / additions.
- Security is paramount - I don't see any security implications when choosing one platform over another, but perhaps the community has some ideas?
We are studying this carefully. We often run a competition among developers who can quickly implement a test application using flex or jquery. We would love to hear what the community has to say though.
Thanks in advance!
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UI : You need to get deployed quickly and html will somehow make this possible. meaning with html tech u can change your ui easily. however, with the whole ui running on flex, small changes require sdk / flex compilation. we have a similar project like yours but we merged both worlds, some widgets use flex, ui is still in html and jquery to do magic things.
on the back, this slide might give you some ideas:
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I've used both. I don't have a strong recommendation, but there are some considerations.
- Mobile support. Flex requires a Flash runtime, which is not available on many mobile platforms. For best results, you'll need a separate mobile interface anyway, not just reusing the desktop interface, although the latter works up to a certain level.
- Browser support. ... You will spend more time on jQuery. They abstract a lot of things, but once you get into the layout specifics of your application, you still have to run a lot of working tests across browsers and platforms that Flex doesn't need.
- User interface layout and architecture. How complex is the application? How modular? Flex has very good templates for composing your application, creating reusable components, etc., jQuery itself won't help you with that, it's more barebones. With Javascript / jQuery, you will need to do your own research to find the best architecture setup.
- Development tools. ... If you like to develop your application using a GUI, Flex has a very nice IDE / coding environment. You are on your own with Javascript. There are tools, but you will need to make your choice.
- Supplier lockout and cost. Flex costs money (well, IDE anyway, you can get a free compiler, but I haven't tried it.) Javascript / jQuery is "free", but it takes time to learn all of the above.
The user experience is both equivalent, you can make a good and bad experience with them. Both have decent pre-made widget sets for the UI, jQuery with ThemeRoller is somewhat easier to customize, but Flex is also great for skinning with a system very similar to W3C CSS.
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I would use Flex. Compliment with jQuery as you see fit, but Flex is a complete framework and framework, and it tends to prevent IE6 (you mentioned small business) from biting your ass later. Also, since you work with small / medium businesses, they will be more WOWed with Flex frontends for jQuery / ExtJS / any UIs. I found the former to be more responsive and prettier out of the box, which would have reduced setup time and processing time.
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TimeFrame: Jquery is easier to get started, but without good basic skill and design, it can easily get confused as the application grows. IDE: Flex wins over JQuery, with jquery I see browser and firebug as IDE SkilL reuse: personally I would say javascript (adobe air is proof)
The Flash player is still quite client-side intensive when it needs to display a lot of text and vector content, which is one of the main reasons I'll go for a javascript solution.
I recommend using flash / flex selectively (video / drawing / diagrams as needed) and with jquery + html as the main structure of the application.
Take a look at ExtJS which is more complete than jquery for dev web app. Although it is less straightforward than jquery to start playing.
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With jQuery (or YUI / ExtJS / ...) you should be able to create apps that look pleasing to the eye, with effects similar / comparable to Flex.
However IMHO, with jQuery-UI, I found that it flickers when components change state. This isn't just a multi-browser problem; it happens on FF sometimes and not at other times. (there might be some memory issues) and your choice is: 1.wait for the community to post a fix and / or 2.do it yourself Flex components on the other hand are tested for this and have better support (although Adobe might be arrogant for solutions).
HTML / JS / CSS apps don't always have a nice and consistent effect (depending on how many tabs you use, how many are useful for your browser session).
With JS, HTML, CSS your development will be easier, while Flex you need good people with an architectural sense (considered expensive); otherwise, you can mess up your application very badly.
JS, CSS and HTML (even 5) will always have cross-browser issues that may never get completely distracted.
With Flex, if your backend is Java or CF, you can get remote objects (AMF binaries) that make data transfers typical, native and fast. (You can even use php-amf, saber-amf, or WebOrb for this, depending on your backend.)
With JS, you're left with json or XML. You can optimize your deployment with Runtime Shared Libs. and use many strategies such as modular development, lazy loading, percept and actual performance gains, etc. It's harder to work with JS / HTML / CSS where a common temptation is to annotate the widget at design time.
JS apps are harder to maintain when a new person comes in, no good debugging tools (IMHO, Aptana is so so).
In the end, I agree with someone here who said a hybrid solution is possible to order. Application development in widgets;
You can use cool drag and drop support with Flex widgets (same with JS, but easier with Flex).
Your flexible widgets will be decoupled and therefore need to incrementally compile in case of changes, and different teams can work on different elements if you have well designed the API for others.
You can communicate with the HTML wrapper using the frontend and send data back and forth.
Best of Luck!
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"Penny wise pound silly"
You can easily be programmed by jQuery programmers (and sanely), however, if they are structured or not in their methodology, that's a different matter. You might end up with a mess after 3 years and not a scalable, workable app.
If you can get a lead developer with great skills in Java, Ajax / jQuery, and Flex skills, and let that person set development standards and guidelines, then it’s well spent.
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