Differences between Flash Builder 4.6 Premium and FDT 5 max?

Question

Can anyone make a detailed comparison of these IDEs (I can't find any)? Which would you recommend for what, etc.?

I need a good IDE for flash and flex. I know for example both have permormance profilers, and testing tools, both are very expensive, etc. Is one of them "better" or more suitable for certain cases, which ones?

I don't have time to test trials (anyways as far as I know FDT max doesn't have a trial, only limited free version).

Answer 1

FDT has only either 'Max' or 'Free', so it's a little tricky to compare it to a tiered approach like FB, which has a standard and premium.

I'll start with the more general differences of FDT vs FB then go to specifically about FDT Max and FB Premium.

General Differences

FDT Advantage

Fast Parser

The biggest difference between the two is that FDT has a very fast parser which detects not only errors in real time, but multiple errors at the same time. A video of this is action can be found here. Flash Builder does not have this and requires you to save (compile) your project to get error updates. This won't be an issue for small projects, but once you have 20+ files, this will really cripple your workflow.

Update: FB now uses it's compiler for error detection, making it's error detection very close in features to FDT.

Quick Fixes / Assists & Refactorings

Other features include tons of quick fixes and quick assists (FDT has ~30-35 , FB has ~5-10) and advanced refactorings such as Extract Constant and Extract Method - videos on that can be see here.

'Not Adobe' & Customizing

One last, and for some significant difference, is that the FDT is very public and easy to contact / interact with. I used to know the members of the FB team; however, since FB development and management moved out of San Francisco, I don't know the team anymore.

FDT will also allow developers to extend FDT by building their own plugins using Flash. This is very big and is as yet unannounced feature to be released very, very soon

FB Advantage

MXML Code Completion

One plus of FB over FDT is that it has better Flex code completion. While not significantly better, if you're a full time Flex developer and need a very robust MXML code completion, it is better in FB.

However, since Adobe is no longer developing the Flex Framework, who knows how this will change in the future.

Integration With Other Adobe Products

FB has more code creation wizards for things like Zend PHP setups and a WYSIWIG Flex editor; however, Adobe will no longer support the Flex WYSIWIG editor after FB 4.6. This is because they have stopped development of the Flex framework.

FB has some Flash Professional integration. Adobe has made some buttons that allow you to automatically switch and compile between FB and Flash Professional.

Better Library Building

One nice feature that some like about FB over FDT is the workflow for creating library SWCs. If you are someone like Jack Doyle (Tweenlite) FB has a nice GUI that allows you to exclude certain packages from SWC generation.

FB Premium vs FDT Max

Besides the general differences, FDT Max is less expensive than FB and FDT will soon offer a subscription option. FDT Max also comes with 'Max Support' which means that you can contact the QA lead directly if you have any problems. This also can lead to direct communication the developers.

Answer 2

Flash Builder is King for me, as it is the fastest RAD tool that I have used out of all the available tools, mentioned above.

The wizards, and continual improvement of the SDK and IDE components makes it quick to use, and develop some solutions without even doing any AS coding.

I would not use anything else, and love the Integration with Flash skinning, etc.

If the features mentioned on this link does not get you interested, then nothing will:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash-builder/features.html

For me, it is crucial to have a fast RAD environment, as to save my time, and be competitive with my quotes to clients, as I know I can get things out the door really fast.

Answer 3

If you don't have time to test trials then you are in a rough spot to really know which will work best for you. That said -

If you are using Windows, try FlashDevelop. It's a great, very fast, open-source IDE for working with Flex and AS3. Has plenty of good features. Unlike FDT and FlashBuilder it is not Eclipse-based though, which has ups and downs of its own.

Having tried all three - FlashDevelop, FDT, and FlashBuilder - I can say they all function well as day-to-day IDEs for AS3 and Flex work. FlashBuilder has better WYSIWIG features for building user interfaces with Flex components; Adobe put a lot of time into it.

FlashBuilder also integrates better with Flash, so if you intend to use FLA files you'll give yourself a little time savings by using FlashBuilder. For this reason I quickly put down FDT and went to FlashBuilder after I tried it out at work.

The one big downside in FlashBuilder, for me, is that it's a little more work to install Eclipse plug-ins for working in other languages.

HTH!

Answer 4

I have worked with Flex/Flash Builder since version 1.5. I can say if you can abandon Flash Builder in favor of something more light weight, then do so. Every version I find Flash Builder getting bulkier and more sluggish. Compile times are not too bad and in some cases have been improved but simple things like typing, code completion, flipping between files, even scrolling up and down a single file has become painfully slow. This has been quite the issue as of late and the cause of me seeking a better IDE for flex/as3 development.

Keep in mind: These observations have been made over the years on both very big (3000+ files) and very small (< 15 files) projects. This accounts for both Mac & PC versions as well as the plugin & standalone versions. Also this takes in consideration many tweaks to the eclipse.ini files for JVM mem usage.

I recently downloaded the free version of FDT and was surprised and concerned that it too is built off the Eclipse platform. While I can't evaluate the more advanced and nice-to-have features, I can test against the basic everyday usage of code completion, searching, opening and closing of files, scrolling, etc. So far I have found the IDE to be much more performant than Adobe FB.

I really attribute most of Adobe FB's poor performance to the increasing Adobe Bloatware that you tend to find in their CS releases. While FB installs on its own, it seems to have some CS integration that could be the culprit. Then again, Eclipse has plenty of folks complaining about its lack of performance.

Flash Develop & IntelliJ are two IDEs that I have yet to try. If I come back to developing on a PC, I am going to try Flash Develop as it's free.

The last thing to keep in mind is that Adobe "donated" the Flex SDK (or some parts of it) to the Apache foundation. This is a BIG red flag that Adobe will most likely start retracting support for Flash Builder and eventually abandon developing it further in a few years. That alone is reason enough to seek another IDE in my book.