Originally posted by Paul Sturrock:
Flex uses Flash, a proprietory client-side technology, to implement rich user interfaces in a browser.
In which case
DON'T use Flex
if you're planning on selling anything to me. I'm alleged to be near the leading edge of technology. This means that I have a 64-bit desktop system and a smartphone running Windows Mobile.
Guess what? Flash doesn't work on either of these systems. Adobe has never released a 64-bit version of Flash and I refuse to downgrade my web browser just to watch YouTube. Nor do they support my mobile device, which is supposed to give me "on-the-spot" web-based information.
The same goes for most of the other add-on client technologies, though the phone has limited applet support.
You may say "so what?", but I went car shopping last year. One major manufacturer lost a deal worth over $20K for the simple reason that their home page was Flash-based and I couldn't get any info on their product line. I shopped at their competitors websites instead where I wasn't locked out by lack of the ability to run Flash on my state-of-the-art 64-bit desktop computer.
JavaScript isn't a problem for me. However, some people do switch JavaScript off for security reasons. This is where JavaScript-savvy JSF tags are a big help, because they can help the application fall back to non-JavaScript operation without requiring a lot of extra developer work.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.