Flex vs JavaScript for created online maps

An interesting discussion over at James Fee's blog on this subject. It looks like more folks are going with Flex for some very simple reasons: 1. Sure, its dedicated IDE costs money, but so does Visual Studio. 2. Adobe Air allows for movement of the app to the desktop. 3. Browser compatibility, particularly with IE, is a massive problem and Flex sidesteps it. 4. Reported better performance. Not to repeat the whole thread, but the most interesting comment was revolving around how Adobe has done what Java was designed to do, but couldn't - get people to install a plugin that was basically browser agnostic and had more functionality than JavaScript (credit to Matt Giger). Update: More commentary from the developers of the Geocommons website. Geocommons is worth a whole post I'll probably do sometime soon, it is pretty nifty and uses Flex.