Flex Development on a Mac

I am yet another Flex developer that prefers the OS X operating system, and needed a way to write, debug, test and tweak Flex applications. With Adobe firmly claming, “The initial of Flex Builder 2.0 will be available on Windows only”, it seemed as though I had limited options:

1. Use the comand-line compiler and debugger provided with the Flex SDK
2. Follow one of several tutorials to get the Actionscript side of Flex Builder working in an OS X install of Eclipse
3. Give up and use Windows

I started down this path several months ago and ultimately ended up with option #3.

Option #1 wasn’t entirely painful, and upon trying several combinations of solutions (XCode, TextMate/ANT/Terminal, etc), I managed to find a groove. However, the groove was pretty shallow, and after using PowerFlasher’s FDT product for 6+ months I was spoiled rotten by code-hints. Also, the lack of code-hints made learning ActionScript 3.0 more challenging.

Going with option #2 felt a little too close to a disaster I had with Flex Builder 1.0. I tried my damnedest to make Dreamweaver on a Mac behave as though it were Flex Builder on a PC. I’d say I had about 2.3% success and one of my biggest accomplishments was showing the FlexBuilder splash screen instead of the Dreamweaver one. At the end of the day, I spent more time messing with FlexBuilder than I did using it and ended up on a Window machine anyway.

I started to realize that the developers around me that were using Flex Builder 2 were learning Flex much more quickly and were able to throw together tests and examples really fast, plus they had integrated version control (with Subclipse). We were a month into a very large Flex 2 project and it was time for me to start cranking out components. So I rounded up a Dell (I think it was our book keeper’s old machine), and installed Flex Builder 2. I actually set up my PowerBook and the Dell and drove them with the same keyboard and mouse using Synergy. It was a really great solution because I could use my Mac for everything I was used to using it for and to run Flex Builder I simple dragged my mouse to another screen.

The limitation to this solution was that I was no longer portable which decreased my productivity quite a bit, i.e. no coding in bed until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. As of a week ago, I’m proud to report that Parallels on an Intel-based Mac is, for me, the ultimate Flex development solution.

In summary, using Flex Builder has greatly increased my productivity. And, until someone develops a more integrated solution, Flex Builder is the best IDE for writing and debugging RIAs with Flex. I’ve heard several qualms about the pricing structure for Flex, especially from Java developers that have the luxury of several “good enough” IDEs. At EUI, we’ve been spending upwards of $800 per developer seat for Flash Pro 8 and the FDT Eclipse Plug-in, and all we use the Flash IDE for is compiling and asset management.

Anyone heard anything about FDT for AS3? We’d be all over it.

Check back. I’ll post links to the tutorials I found before switching to Parallels