Infoworld: A Striking Balance (A Review of Macromedia's Studio MX)

 
May 08, 2002
This Infoworld article does a balanced job of analyzing Macromedia's new Studio MX, now in preview release. (To avoid confusion: Studio MX here refers to Macromedia's complete suite of new products under the MX line, including Dreamweaver MX, ColdFusion MX and Flash MX, among others.) The reviewer, Tom Yager, discusses Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX and ColdFusion MX in detail, giving all of them very favorable reviews, while acknowledging small ways in which they could perhaps be improved (for instance, that Mr. Yager had hoped that "Dreamweaver would enable drawing of Flash MX interface layouts, but it doesn't." Yager approves highly of Dreanweaver's new interface design (replacing the "traditional Macromedia independent, free-floating tool windows" with dockable panels, and he likes ColdFusion MX's new integrated Apache SOAP engine, allowing CF to be exported as Web Services. One memorable comment on Macromedia's direction with Studio MX: "Macromedia serves developers who, after being handed a set of requirements, skip the diagramming and dive straight into graphics editing, layout, and scripting. Studio MX seeks to strike a better balance between coding and visual design, but it's still an environment for developers who eschew modeling and management in favor of just knocking it out."

Does Studio MX achieve this balance between coding and design? Yager's conclusion is that "it's hard to imagine that any set of tools could be better at creating great-looking cross-platform applications." Way to go, Macromedia!

A Striking Balance (Infoworld, April 29, 2002 -- Review of Macromedia's Studio MX)


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