Dev team says cat components unusable!!

Question

I'm a designer. Me and my team have been trying to use catalyst along with our developer who use builder.
The dev team is saying that any component from catalyst is 10-20 times the size of a builder comp, and so they are
practically unusable. They make everything run too slow. I've asked if it might be because we built them inefficiently in CAT,
and if there is a solution to that, and they say NO, all components, even simple buttons are HUGE in size, and so CAT sucks,
and they can use any files from it.   I'm not a builder use, or a dev, so have no way to really validate this. Any comments?
Is this true? Is it a problem with how we are building our components?

Answer 1

That is going to be a tough battle to win. Most developers feel "that the only good code is the code they write".
Catalyst uses the same button component that Flash Builder uses, so if they are rewriting even the Spark button, there is not a lot you can do. For any component that has a pencil icon on it, those are the same as the Flash Builder versions. You should be able to skin/style those elements with almost no cost to development.
Custom component can be a different story. Catalyst does like to use RichText for all it's text displays, and that is a 'heavy' component. I would reverse the process. Have them develop the component framework and it's required parts, then you can bring that component into Catalyst and apply the visuals. There is work to done to produce optimized Catalyst elements. Try working on one component with a developer on your team to solve some of the issues.
I find that working in smaller components is easier for the development team to ingest Catalyst assets.
Chris Griffith