Lane4Interactive

I debated even posting about this because there are so many developers in the Flash community already talking about it; then I thought why not I still have a few questions. I won’t take this post as far as bashing Silverlight as much as a search for an answer to “Why switch?”

There is no argue that Microsoft has offered the RIA world a new way to create and display solid interactive applications, but I still don’t see a need to switch. Dave Wolf from Cynergy comments on how this is good for the world of RIA’s and only confirms that RIA’s are here to stay. I agree. As well as I agree with all of the bloggers stating that this competition will be good for Flash and can only help its future growth. But I still want to know why I would switch to developing applications in XAML and JavaScript and as Keith Peters says, taking a 5 year step backwards with prototype classes.

I attended MIX 2006 where Microsoft demoed WPF and a bit of WPF/E and I watched the Flash developers around the room with smirks on their faces basically saying, “Okay, I’ve been able to do that for 5 years with Flash.” They continued to show applications with a cube of videos that spun as a 3D object. Kinda cool and it was very smooth because their player has a closer tie to the hardware but I don’t think that will sell it for anyone.

I promise, I’m not trying to bash Silverlight, I just don’t understand why I would switch. Okay, maybe I don’t have to and that is not the question, maybe I should be asking why business owners and executives are asking my to really look into this. Why do they care? Since when is it a business goal of an application to have XAML over MXML or vice versa? It must be because Silverlight can do something more than Flash. If so, what can it do? As of a year ago I was not impressed. It was shiny, and I like shiny things that move, but I had seen it all before.

So I guess I can end by asking those of you who have worked with WPF or Silverlight, what can it do that Flash cannot and how important are these features to the success of solid web or desktop applications?

- Tim O’Hare

As you can see it has been about a year since my last post. Well I’m gonna give it a shot again. I have been at home for about 2 weeks now celebrating the birth of my son Conner and while I love every minute of his time I do need to get away a for a bit. So, I thought it may be a good time to start writing except this time make it more frequent. My posts may not always be long, but I just want to take some time to reflect on my thoughts for the day or present my latest development findings. Hope you enjoy.

- Tim O’Hare

I turned 29 today. I have to say that this was a pretty good birthday. My family came down from Kentucky and we celibrated two birthdays; mine and my little brother’s who turned 17 on March 28th. I got two very nice gifts today; a tool chest and a 6MB digital camera. Now I can keep the garage a little cleaner and I won’t have to take pictures on my cellphone. I should have some nice pics to post when I go to Vegas for NAB the end of April.

Happy Birthday to me!

I just got back from Microsoft’s newest conference called MIX. It was all about Vista, Media Center, IE7 and yes, Sparkle which is now known as Expression. I had a great time and got the chance to hang out and chat with some fellow Flash Developers, but most of all, Vegas DID NOT BEAT ME! (more…)

Thanks for visiting Lane4Interactive. My name is Tim O’Hare and I am an industry leading Flash developer with experience since 2000. Lane4Interactive has been around since 2002, but up until now I haven’t had the chance to do much with the site. In walks WordPress. Once I switched over to a Linux environment I was introduced to the world of blogging and WordPress, which is everything you see on the page. I’ve only had a few days to mess with the application, but so far, this is a pretty nice app. I highly recommend it, check it out here. (more…)