It seems like a lifetime ago, but I used to do some Flash "programming."  I even helped write a book on Flash and ASP.NET.  One of the must frustrating (and frustrating isn't a strong enough word) problems with developing Flash "applications" today is the lack of a true development environment like we're accustomed to with Visual Studio or other traditional IDEs.  Teaching a VB or C++ developer to create Flash applications is like trying to teach a pig to do ballet.  Maybe it can be done, but it sure ain't gonna be pretty. 

Hopefully that is about to change.  Former ASP.NET team member Mark Anders (along with many other bright individuals, I'm sure) has been hard at work on a new framework and IDE for Flash.  Flex Builder 2 and Flex Framework 2 promise to make it much easier and attractive for developers to create applications.  Based on Eclipse, the IDE offers what you would expect: a WYSIWYG designer with a set of standard UI components (imagine that!) you can drop on to your form, and a code-behind view so you can tweak to your heart's content.  I know very little about Microsoft's XAML, but it appears that Macromedia has taken a similar approach with an XML-based declarative UI language named MXML.  How would you pronounce that?  Max-Mul?  Mex-M-L?  Now I'm hungry for a MexiMelt from Taco Bell.

Only time will tell if Flex will "take off" with developers.  After watching the Flex Builder 2 tutorials, I just might have to give Flash another chance.