tag:robotlegs.tenderapp.com,2009-10-18:/discussions/robotlegs-2/8478-drawbacks-of-robotlegs-2-compared-with-puremvcRobotlegs: Discussion 2014-04-28T08:13:04Ztag:robotlegs.tenderapp.com,2009-10-18:Comment/303045912013-12-07T11:39:09Z2013-12-07T12:16:41ZDrawbacks of Robotlegs 2 compared with PureMVC<div><p>I know from my own experience how difficult it is to decide
which framework/tools/libraries to use for a certain project, on a
certain platform from a multitude of available framework/libraries.
It's a time (and nerves) consuming process. You "google" something
like "as3 framework comparison" or "the best framework ever", and
then you read this article, then the other, you go through
discussions on forums, compare the size of their communities and
level of activity, read their best practices, you look at examples
and read yet another article, or look at a poll, and by the end of
the day(s)/week(s)/month(s) you find yourself totally confused and
frustrated.<br>
But, before throwing your computer out the window, I suggest you do
the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>forget about what you've read and the myriads of opinions for a
while</li>
<li>narrow down the long list to only 2 frameworks - which you seem
to have done already</li>
<li>be ready to invest some time in investigating the 2 frameworks
( a few weeks?)</li>
<li>take an example from framework A and try to port it to
framework B</li>
<li>take another example from framework B and port it to framework
A</li>
<li>modify the examples wildly - do the craziest things that come
to mind and see how they behave</li>
<li>read the best practices or documentations of both frameworks
while looking at the examples</li>
<li>now try to plan your own app with the real requirements of your
ongoing project in mind and write down the "difficult" to implement
features of your project that would benefit from using a
framework.</li>
<li>work with the 2 examples you built above and see which
framework "feels" more easy to use. Yes, you've heard it right,
"feels"!<br></li>
<li>now, if you chose framework A, work with it on a real project,
preferably not one of the largest you have ongoing. How does it
feel?</li>
</ul>
<p>I know both frameworks, PureMVC and Robotlegs, but I'm not going
to engage in a discussion about which one is better. That means, I
won't answer any questions about speed performance or advantages of
using Robotlegs over any other framework.</p>
<p>My own journey through many as3 frameworks taught me a lot. Even
if I decided not to use a certain framework, after investing time
in researching about it, it turned out that it wasn't a waste of
time as I thought while doing so. The people behind those
frameworks are brilliant, and they all have contributed tons to my
programming "education".</p>
<p>Cliff Hall, the author of PureMVC, is one of the people I
respect most. He is an awesome teacher! But, so are Shaun Smith -
the author of Robotlegs, Till Schneidereit - the author of
Swiftsuspenders, Robert Penner - the author of AS3-Signals, Stray
and Joel Hooks - the authors of the Robotlegs book and major
contributors to the framework, and of course, now, creynders. I'm
mentioning only puremvc and robotlegs people, because your focus is
on these 2 frameworks.</p>
<p>At least out of respect for all those people, if not for other
reasons, I hope that this discussion will be kept at a decent
level:)</p>
<p>No matter which framework you'll decide to use, I recommend
reading both books, because lots of the principles described there
are general in nature:<br>
ActionScript Developer’s Guide to Robotlegs: - <a href=
"http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021216.do">http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021216.do</a><br>
ActionScript Developer's Guide to PureMVC: - <a href=
"http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022459.do">http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022459.do</a></p>
<p>Richard Lord has done an awesome job with his frameworks
comparison. Look at the links at the end of the article for
examples created for the most as3 frameworks known at that
time:</p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.richardlord.net/blog/flexcaster-robotlegs">http://www.richardlord.net/blog/flexcaster-robotlegs</a></p>
<p>The robotlegs example is using an older rl1 version, but it
would be a good exercise for you to port it to rl 2, and if you
shared it with us, it would help us improve our demo base;)</p>
<p>Here is an interesting article in 2 parts about JavaScript
frameworks and how to decide which one will best meet the needs of
your project. The criteria are actually the same on every
platform.</p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/the-10-hottest-javascript-framework-projects-228335?page=0,0">
http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/the-10-hottest-j...</a></p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/the-10-hottest-javascript-framework-projects-228335?page=0,1">
http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/the-10-hottest-j...</a></p>
<p>If you still don’t know what to choose, roll a dice :P</p>
<p>Ondina</p></div>Ondina D.F.tag:robotlegs.tenderapp.com,2009-10-18:Comment/303045912013-12-07T13:09:58Z2013-12-07T13:09:58ZDrawbacks of Robotlegs 2 compared with PureMVC<div><p>My 2 cents:</p>
<p>Obviously I'm biased since I'm a RL contributor, that said
however, I <em>did</em> have my reasons to switch to RL from
PMVC.</p>
<p>Advantages of PMVC:<br>
1/ it's definitely faster<br>
2/ it's not restricted to one language/platform.</p>
<p>Though most people think 1/ is the most important one, I don't
agree. Speed is irrelevant when it comes to application frameworks
(well, not entirely irrelevant of course) PMVC nor RL are meant to
be used in high-speed contexts (like a game-engine for instance)
Both are meant to allow you to use the MVC pattern to separate
concerns in your application in distinct tiers. But you should
never rely on either framework to broadcast gameloop events for
instance.</p>
<p>So this leaves us with 2/ which definitely has its benefits.
Whether you're working in php, javascript, as3, ... you can rely on
the same paradigm. This means that once you're familiar with the
paradigm it's really easy to pick up what is happening in an
application even when you're not entirely knowledgable in the
language it's created in.</p>
<p>Personally, what put me off PMVC was the (IMO) massive amount of
boilerplate and casting. And then I learned to love the simplicity
and elegance of RL, which got me hooked. Also, architecturally
speaking there's a number of things I have a hard time with in
PMVC.<br>
But let's not forget that RL was based on PMVC. And. It's always
easy to pick out the flaws after the fact.</p>
<p>@Ondina thanks for the kind words!</p></div>creynders