Question

if I understand correctly – the main difference between Flash and Flex on the client’s side is that Flex requires loading additional files for Flex to work.

Is this the case, and if so, how much added data does Flex load up compared to Flash applications?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Flex is actually compiling as result biger files than Flash, because of the Frameworks which adds.

About the difference – it will be different, depending what actually library you have been used inside your project.

Anyway – i think quality of flex framework shall be considered over the file size.
The difference usually is about 2x biger file sizes for a serious projects ( and what of this when we are speaking about file sizes usually not above a few kb. ), but i would exchange the bigger size for much greather quality and programming time spend even for a simple tasks.

About loading additional files.
There is 3 methods which is presented by Flash Builder ( Flex ) which u can use.
For instance if you choose “Framework Linkage” to be “Merged into code” – there wont be any external libraries loaded, everything shall be embed inside your result file.
If you choose “Framework Linkage” to be “Runtime Shared Libraries (RSL)” then there will be libraries loading from your server. Anyway – considering this methood will result really small file size, and you will load only once the libraries from external source, the next time when you are loading your file – there wont be any external libraries loading ( if there is not any change with your framework i mean ).