Why the is flexbuilder plugin for eclipse so slow to open and compile?

Question

I've got a decent computer. ( something with dual-core in the name and a lot of ram ). Sometime FlexBuilder prompt the "builder project" loading bar only when i open a simple mxml file. It's look like he does some difficult jobs... i don't ask for anything fancy. I just want the file open, in text mode. Every time i hit ctrl+s, i fear the "building project who take forever" thing. I've disable the automatic build, but it's not convenient.

Another thing, more understandable. I'v got a Ant task who compile our code with the flexBuilderSdk. It's take forever ( like 2 min for 100 .as file and 20 .mxml file ).

For the two question : Is that normal ? Can i do something ? Because it's killing my productivity ! ( no, seriously ;-) )

Answer 1

anirudhsasikumar mark a point : Improvement of the Flex4 SDK have been backported. http://www.deitte.com/archives/2008/10/a%5Ffaster%5Fflex%5F3.htm It's a little bit faster, but i encounter some problem with firefox then. ( Dont ask why ! ) The issue : The result SWF work on IE7, but not on Firefox ( unlimited waiting at the loading )

But a real improvement of the building is to use FCSH, to avoid compile the same file two time. It's improve the performance drasticly.

http://wildwinter.blogspot.com/2008/04/fcsh-wrapper-for-ant.html

Answer 2

Flex compiler performance is known to be pretty slow. They are making an effort to improve compiler performance for Flex 4. See the developer notes here:

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Notes+on+Compiler+Performance+Improvements

Compiling a Flex application is a 2-step process. First, the MXML files are compiled into the equivalent ActionScript classes. If you add the "-keep" compiler parameter, you'll be able to see all these files in a folder called "generated." After the AS3 classes are created, then the AS compiler turns these into bytecode in the form of a .SWF file.

If you have a slow hard disk (say a 5400 RPM laptop drive) that will also affect the performance of compilation. I would definitely recommend disabling "Build Automatically" and just press CTRL-B when you want to build. It's not very difficult to do that when you want to build, much better than waiting for a compile every time you change a file.

Answer 3

The above mentioned improvements have also been backported to the Flex 3 SDK by Brian Deitte. You can try this out at his blog. It is way faster.

Answer 4

There are some tweaks you can do with the Flex Builder Configuration

More here: Link

Answer 5

Use the settings in [How can I reduce Eclipse Ganymede's memory use? and read the article calderas sent.