Anyone care to tell me who is better and why? I can see a distinct difference in who is using which. But why?

O’Reilly Introduction to OOP in Flash and ActionScript Part 1. Timely.

Flash MX makes it as easy as VB to build GUIs – except they are cross platform – and fast.

via the new dangerousmeta!. Now looking good sporting MovableType. Man oh man I wish I could bring my links back down to one page like that!

Email Ryan Cox at ryancox@mailblocks.com to join a mailing list discussing using Flash with Java.

…Well, I’ve just joined the Macromedia board of directors, so that may tell you something about the importance I place on Macromedia. It’s important for Flash to become more open and more standard (even if only to the level of Postscript and Acrobat, which have widely been accepted as standards despite Adobe’s ownership, because of Adobe’s complete and timely documentation of all new releases).

I find Central fascinating, because I do think that we’re deconstructing the browser these days. Central is one of several attempts to take the web apart and put it together in new ways. On Mac OS X, Watson and Sherlock are analogous examples. And of course RSS and related syndication technologies are also deconstructing the web in new ways.

We’re entering a new world in which data may be more important than software. The frameworks that enable the manipulation and distribution of that data are yet to be defined. Flash does enable great cross-platform interfaces using a small client footprint (orders of magnitude smaller than Java), so if we can just open up the right kind of innovation and sharing on top of that platform, a lot of great stuff can happen.

It’s essential that we keep those new frameworks open and cooperative. I used David Weinberger’s wonderful phrase above: “small pieces loosely joined.” This is the current architecture of the internet. Tools like Flash and Central are really useful, but they don’t currently support that architecture. However, I believe there is an opportunity for them to play better on the Internet, and by doing so, to become even more successful than they already are.

Read the rest at stage4.

Any pointers on great Flash MX sites for newbies? From a developer perspective?

Update: You can download a fully functional trial edition (expires after 15 days) from Macromedia. It comes with a full set of tutorials to get you started. The environment kinda reminds me of VB and Paradox for Windows.

moock.org’s blog is a weblog by the author of O’Reilly’s “ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide”. A book I am digging into. Very well written and easy to follow.

To “Turn Java into a first-class citizen of the Mozilla/XUL platform. This will enable developers to build applications where a Java backend can be used to interact with a Mozilla/XUL front-end, combining the power of Java’s server libraries with the interactivity and user interface capabilities of Mozilla.” Looks like a project to watch.

Now that Mozilla is free of AOL (a great thing for Mozilla – a horrible thing for those AOL let go) – I wonder if you will see more big company involvement.

Yahoo provides a desktop tool to create and manage websites hosted with them. It appears that the tool only works with Yahoo’s service and that it was developed with Java.

Builder.com: Customize error logging with the Logging API: An intro to the 1.4 SDK provided Logging API.

A great overview of jEdit and some of its more popular plugins.

Speaking of IDE’s, Martin Perez shares some Eclipse resources.

Rafe Colburn at OnJava:

One feature that seems to eventually creep into every web application is the ability to send email. Generally, it’s a very specific kind of email, like a password reminder, welcome message, order confirmation, or receipt. Despite the fact that the content of these emails differs from application to application, the process of sending email rarely changes. You construct a message, give it to the mail server, and it gets delivered.

The article is a great intro into how to send email utilizing XML templates as a wrapper. Looks like it’s a technique that once you use it – you’ll use it over and over again.

Congrats Rafe! I’m sure this is the first of many.

Speaking of getting published, Erik C. Thauvin‘s list of favorite Java webloggers “Eric’s Pulse” is published in Java Developer’s Journal.