Why FireMonkey is so fundamentally wrong in every aspect of it's being
A short time ago I had a harsh twitter argument with Nick Hodges ( @NickHodges) about the FireMonkey framework in Delphi XE4 (you may know that I had the start of my professional career with Delphi and started as a speaker at Delphi conferences).
It all started with the definition of ’native’ or - even worse - ’true native’, but let’s start at the beginning. I know the audience of my blog is mostly .NET focused, so let me get you all set with the required background information.
FireMonkey
So, let’s start what FireMonkey is - or aims to be. FireMonkey is a application development framework (or platform, as Embarcadero likes to call it) and contains components that should enable the developer to build cross-applications with a singe code base for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS and soon to come Android. FireMonkey is written for Delphi and can also be used from C++ within Embarcaderos C++ Builder.
So the main idea is, that you design your forms with FireMonkey components and controls, double-click on buttons to add your business logic like Delphi developers did this for the last decades and then be able to compile the application for Windows, for Mac OS X and for iOS without changing it anymore.
And indeed, this works technically…
Architecture
…but this is also already the point where it starts getting wrong.
FireMonkey, by it’s RAD approach, encourages the developer to click his user interface together, double-click on controls and put all the logic onto the form - where it doesn’t belong. I’m not going to argue with anybody about decoupling, testability of code and all the other Clean Code aspects and concepts. A good developer should have the inner urge to produce code at a certain minimum quality level and putting everything on the form is nothing that helps here. So, the basic concept that FireMonkey encourages is wrong.
New and not-so-advanced developers tend to adopt this bad style and start running into a direction that will end up in fatality. Good developers instead will start by building up a good architecture for their application. Most probably working with tests, that makes the usage of some DI container a no-brainer. This most probably also lead to a good decoupled architecture on the application frontend, perhaps introducing some MVC concept for their GUI. Only this enables them to take a good approach to real and thoughtful cross platform development, but more on that in a minute.
Cross-Platform
Let’s talk about cross platform development in a general way, before we go back to FireMonkey.
Every platform has its specifics. And a user - that is, in fact, our customer we want to sell our application too - chooses his platform for some reason. There are multiple approaches to make the user happy, and the most simple thing is, to integrate the app seamlessly into the environment (platform) the user chose to please him.
Let’s talk a little about UX. I’m thinking about the overall user experience with your application here, not only the look & feel of the GUI. It’s the whole full package including a good guidance through the workflow, helping the user to not enter crap into your app, assisting him to solve problems when he does, make everything accessible for everyone, especially impaired users, and of course also response times and stuff. As said, the whole package.
All platform vendors have thought about how their platform / devices should behave, how software should behave on the platform and what they expect from an application. They offer UX guidelines that describe what fits into the environment and how applications can fit seamlessly into the platform, providing an overall exquisite user experience to the guys you want money from.
Comparing just Apples (iOS and the Mac) and Googles (Android), which are the current relevant platforms for FireMonkey besides Desktop-Windows, UX guidelines shows you how different the platforms are. They are fundamentally different in how the control flow in applications is expected from the user. Leave alone Windows RT for tables and Windows Phone, which have a radical new approach to interacting with applications. But since Windows RT and Windows Phone are not (yet ?) supported, we don’t need to get into those details right now. Just so far right now: Delphi is marketed as the best/fastest/most productive dev tool for Windows. Why can’t you target Windows RT? Or write Windows Store applications for Windows 8 with it? Well, thats another topic. But still taking into account, that the main target audience for FireMonkey are Delphi (and as such mainly Windows-) developers, this leads into a fatal direction:
FireMonkey encourages the following: The Windows-Developer designs his FireMonkey form for Mobile Devices just as he would design a Windows-Application form. This for Windows designed UX is ported in a one-size-fits-all attempt onto the Mac (not so extremely terrible bad), but also to iOS and later Android (overly extremely bad).
Why is this bad? Because the user chose his platform with something in his mind. This something is the overall user experience with the device and of course with the applications he gets from the store within the platform itself. It’s a closed ecosystem for his needs. He expects his iPhone/iPad-Applications to come in his loved iOS style or he expects his Android-Applications to come in an Android-Style. So again, we need to please our customers because they are the ones buying our applications and giving us their money. So how can we make them happy? Give them, what they expect.
Users expectations, and a sub-plot
That can be done only in one way: To embrace the platform and behave like a good citizen on that platform. Developing a ’native’ application is not the only way, but whatever technology you choose, the result should still integrate seamlessly into the environment.
A good example is Exfm. They have a music sharing service, and used to publish a ’native’ iOS application. Native as in written in Objective-C with XCode. It had a 4-star rating. Still they did a rewrite of the app - with HTML5 and JavaScript - based on PhoneGap. During the rewrite and despite the fact that they were actually programming a web application that runs in a UIWebView browser, they incredibly focused on iOS detail behaviour like the scroll bounce thingy or the possibility to scroll-bounce elements that don’t need to be scrolled because they are not larger than the area displaying them. They even mimicked the iOS behaviour that you can tap and hold on a button, move away from it, slide over the button again and lift your finger to trigger it. They did that with HTML 5.
They did that for one reason: To behave like a good citizen on iOS. To please their users.
And now they have a HTML application that you can’t tell apart from a native application that uses the native UI controls of iOS. The new app now got a 4.5 star rating and more downloads than ever. Here’s an article with a lot of more detail information about the little iOS details that make the app feel ‘right’ on iOS.
Now let’s get back to FireMonkey.
Einheitsbrei
I’m trying to introduce a new word to my english speaking friends: ‘Einheitsbrei’. You already use some german words like Zeitgeist and Kindergarten, and now it’s time for ‘Einheitsbrei’.
Einheitsbrei is a word that could be translated with ‘boring standard mash’. Is used deprecative and describes things that are boring, common, and don’t have any specific characteristic or outstanding elements.
FireMonkey apps are Einheitsbrei. They are sub-standard on every platform and don’t take into account the little, loved by users, elements of the platform they are running on. And in some cases they don’t even get the basic things right.
Architecture, the second: Doing it better
In the first architecture section I described that a good application architecture very probably involves some sort of DI and MVC on the GUI part.
Nick said on twitter:
@ phoenixhawk And you have full platform access with Delphi for iOS.You can call any API you want.
— Nick Hodges (@NickHodges) April 23, 2013
So, let’s take this for granted. When I can call ‘any API I want’ with Delphi for iOS, then I would have full access to all native UI controls on iOS. When I already have MVC in my application, then there is nothing that would hinder me as a developer to use the DI container to instantiate a view for iOS that is using the iOS native UI controls, and to instantiate a view for Android that makes use of the native Android UI controls there.
With just a little bit more effort on the views using the platform APIs, bypassing FireMonkeys UI controls, your app could behave like a good citizen on the very specific platform my customer chose for himself for a reason. Remember: that customer guy is the guy I need to make happy because I want him to give me his money.
Conclusion
Yes, it’s more effort. Yes, it will take longer. Yes, it will require you to learn about the platforms UX design guidelines and about the platforms native UI controls. But it’s worth it. Like extfm, who re-wrote an existing app with the goal to their iOS users more happy and another one that makes their Android users happy.
FireMonkey instead encourages you to produce Einheitsbrei. And this is just so wrong. You will find out, when you don’t get the ratings required to have enough sales for your app. Users are cruel. They buy your app, and rate it down when they don’t like it. And they tell other users to not buy your app, when they are not happy with it. They will, however, rate your app up and tell others to also buy when they really like it. But just when the app’s buttons are so good, that they want to lick them.
Your app needs to be outstanding, of high quality and provide a well designed user experience to be successful and to be able to compete against other applications. Einheitsbrei doesn’t sell. And FireMonkey, by design, encourages Einheitsbrei. You won’t do yourself a favor by using it.
This is my opinion on why FireMonkey is just so wrong.