Flex + AJAX?

Our current RIA development efforts at work are done in AJAX - mostly Dojo with a little JQuery. Is there still a need for Flex in these scenarios or will Javascript do pretty much all the jobs I would need to do with Flex anyway since we are already fairly proficient with a couple AJAX frameworks?

-Tony

If you can do all the rich interface stuff you want to with existing browser technologies then probably not. One of Flex's big benefits is it has a far lower learning curve than the AJAX framework route. If you are already past that, and you have existing AJAX applications I'm not sure I see a reason to switch.

Thanks for the info.

As a part-time developer (and full time architect), I am not as entrenched in any JS framework technology, but for other projects in which I may be directly developing some RIA apps, how would you say Flex compares specifically with something like JQuery? What about integration with iPhone devices or cloud applications such as Google Apps or Force.com?

Its not going to work on an iPhone; Apple have gone to extra lengths to prevent Flash (and other languages) running on the iPhone.

As for cloud computing, I have to admit I've not really looked at it, but there is nothing prevent Flex running in that environment.

Paul Sturrock wrote:Apple have gone to extra lengths to prevent Flash (and other languages) running on the iPhone.

Now Adobe is coming up with Packager for iPhone and that will enable Adobe's Action Script to work on iPhone. It is going to hit markets soon.

Anil Vupputuri wrote:

Paul Sturrock wrote:Apple have gone to extra lengths to prevent Flash (and other languages) running on the iPhone.

Now Adobe is coming up with Packager for iPhone and that will enable Adobe's Action Script to work on iPhone. It is going to hit markets soon.

...and Apple have changed their licencing to ban access to the iPhone API through any intermediary layer. Adobe is no longer actively developing their iPhone packager. Flash is not going to run on the iPhone any time soon.