Share your thoughts on the Fx prefixes in Flex 4

01.21.09Posted by Ben in FlexComments Off

Adobe has made the decision to prefix all skinnable components in Flex 4 with the letters Fx, resulting in class names like FxButton, FxCheckBox, etc. They have also stated that if community disagreement were strong enough they would consider reversing this decision. Please use this form to submit your opinion.

http://bit.ly/AxeFx

Spread the word and make others aware of the form as well. The more responses the better.

Update: Manish Jethani, former Flex Team engineer, has written a post detailing why this is such a bad solution. Its really great to see this, not only because I obviously have a lot of respect for Manish, but also because his post is what I would have written if I had the time. He lays out an argument virtually identical to the one in my head, but I think it carries more weight coming from him. So thanks for the backup Manish, and to everyone else, go read it!

Update 2: I’ve made the results sheet public so anyone can view it. Check it here. Note this does not mean the survey is over, just letting everyone see results as they come in. Sorry its just a spreadsheet, blame Google.

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

http://thomblake.com thomblake

I don’t like the survey. I wanted to vote positively towards the Fx prefix, but there isn’t really an option.
http://www.returnundefined.com/ Ben Clinkinbeard

Hi Thom,

You’re right, I definitely geared it towards people that have a problem with the prefixes. My thinking, beyond the fact that removing them is what I am trying to accomplish, is that if you are for the prefixes your side is already winning. In other words, if nothing is done you’ve gotten what you want since they are already in place.

Thanks,
Ben
http://blog.simb.net/2009/01/19/take-flex-back-for-the-community/ simeon

Hey Ben,

Great idea! I am so on board with ditching the Fx prefixes. But I really think the decision to include them is symptom of a greater problem. Had the community had input into the decision to do this, it never would have been done. Very few people who understand why it was done agree with the decision.

We need to help Adobe create a community forum for discussing the implementation of features. With our input things like this would not happen and beyond that the developers of the community could help offset the budget for development on the Flex SDK team.

But in the interest of being fair perhaps the form should allow people to show their support. While I don’t agree with the change, I believe in the community and for your statistics to be effective they have to show both sides of the argument.

Thanks for helping make some noise!
Constantin Ehrenstein

I vote for ditching the Fx prefix, simply because it’s counter-intuitive.

The ActionScript language and the Flex framework are very easy to learn, and very intuitive in terms of naming conventions.

We are now steering towards an even better Flex release named Gumbo, and though I understand there are concerns regarding backward compatibility, it seems a bit awkward that we should choose counterintuitive names just for the sake of an “old” (yet very common version).

I strongly vote for the use of namespaces to solve that problem. A developer should be able to use if she intended to use the Gumbo button and to use the Halo button. That’s what namespaces are for, right?

Best regards
C.
DavidD

Hi , nice initiative,
At some point, they got to understand the bad they’ve done to the image of Flex. I’m not anymore eager to read any docs or articles around Flex 4 since I’m aware of that Fx peg leg.

Can we have access to some results ? or a read-only version of the spreadsheet behind the form ? (if it’s possible with this google doc thing)
Because after validating our choices, we just have a “thank you” message.

… yes I know I’m one of those damn impatients.

Regards,
dD
Jared

The existing components are all in the mx: namespace why not create a new namespace like fx rather then adding fx to class names? Who really is going to create an application with both the new and the old components at the same time anyway? Namespaces would probably make migration easier as you can swap namespace and then correct all the errors where backwards compatibility is broken not have to go in and update every since component name. The Fx prefix is such a lazy man’s hack.
Alan

Matt Chotin has set up a meeting to talk with the Flex developers about this. Come by guys.

” Announcing a Flex Community Feedback Forum

WHEN: January 28th 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET / 6:00pm GMT (duration 1 hour)

Come speak with the Flex SDK team to voice your interests and concerns. This
session will be an opportunity for the community to talk about the Flex SDK
itself and discuss our management of the SDK open source project. Please
bring your questions and feedback as the session will primarily be led by
you (and could be short if there’s not a lot of input).

The meeting will be broadcast via Connect:
http://adobedev.adobe.acrobat.com/techweds
** enter the room as a Oguest¹ using your First and Last name **

If you¹re unable to attend, the meeting will be recorded and posted on the
Flex Open Source site
(http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK) afterward.

We look forward to hearing from you!”
http://blog.joeflash.ca Joeflash

Then you’ll want to vote for this “bug” as well: https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-17854
Jay

This prefix needs to be dropped !
Please Adobe listen to us and gives something that we *want* to use.