Well, two days into my Flex run and I have got to say im loving it. I am picking it up quite quickly, and even though I have been focused on coldfusion tag based syntax for several years now, I find im picking emca style actionscript up quite easily too. Learning all of the constructs and features of the language is going to be my hardest part. I have done several examples and tutorials around the web, mostly macromedia. If anyone has any tutorials they can point me to, please let me know! As far as my "Developing Rich Clients with Macromedia Flex" book, it may be that i'm not far enough into it yet, but it isn't quite what I expected. From what I have read so far, it seems to be more of a broad overview of the code and ideas behind flex, not so much a book of tutorials and syntax examples to get you started. And there are a few items in the book that arent acurate, im not sure if they are related to the difference between 1.0 and 1.5 or not. For instance, in the book at one point it mentions this code:
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Flex impressions
<mx:XML id="blogList" src="blogs.xml" />
which throws an error.
this code:
<mx:XML id="blogList" source="blogs.xml" />
does work though. I'm not giving up on the book yet though, it will still offer good information regardless.
As far as flex goes though, im nothing short of amazed. Rapid development is an understatement. There are a few things that are bugging me, like the debugging information, or the lack thereof. I guess im just used to coldfusion and its great error reporting. The whitelist seems to be giving me fits as well, some of the examples that come with flex wont even work; im especially having trouble with some named http-service's. But so far, having only been in it for a couple days, I can definately say my flex future looks bright.
Again, if anyone has any resources or tutorials they can point me to, bring em on!
Posted on Fri. June 10, 2005 by Ryan Guill
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Some sick examples here: http://coenraets.com/index.jsp Good links & Resources here: http://www.cflex.net/ FAQ itself: <a href="http://www.cflex.net/showfaq.cfm?Object=faq&channelID=1&faqtype=&defaultfields=&defaultValues=">http://www.cflex.net/showfaq.cfm?Object=faq&channelID=1&faqtype=&defaultfields=&defaultValues=</a>
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Thanks for the links Jester, I was aware of the first one, but not the other two. I appreciate it!
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An excellent way to come up to speed is the new 4 day course from Macromedia: Flex for Web Application Developers. It was released last month, is up to date on Flex 1.5, and was conceived as a comprehensive intro to Flex for CFers. The class description is at this url: www.macromedia.com/support/training/instructor_led_curriculum/flex_webapp_developers.html The class is offered by Macromedia training partners around the world. (At url above, click link "Find a Class" along the right side.) hth g
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Wow, something really has this entry messing up my design. Greg, Thanks for the info. Im not sure that I really want to do a class just yet, id like to get my feet underneath me on my own first I think. Plus, the only class in the US in the next 90 day is in Seattle, which is a little further than I would rather travel for a 4 day course. Unfortunately, I live in the midsouth, in Memphis, TN, and there really isn't ever much close though.
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It's probably the URL's. They wrap fine in the comments panel, but doubt it on your blog. Happens on mine all the time.
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Hi Ryan, The error you pointed out was something that slipped through the QA process. Some of the code in the book was written around 6 months before the product was released, while the Flex feature-set and syntax was still being tied down. We tried hard to ensure that all examples were brought up to date, but some inevitable did get through. You're right that our book is designed to give more of architectural best-practices look at developing with Flex, rather than just repeating what Macromedia already provide in their documentation. For that reason, we strongly believe that the book is still very valid for developing with Flex 1.5, notwithstanding the syntax changes in the language, the biggest of those being the deprecation of widthFlex and heightFlex. Another resource is the iteration::two blog, where we post samples and discuss Flex(http://www.richinternetapps.com). Also, I'd strong advise that you sign up for the FlexCoders mailing list (http://www.flexcoders.org) - theres a very active Flex community there and a lot of the Flex engineering team hang out and reply to questions. You could also check out Cairngorm, the open-source framework we've developed for Flex development. Its pattern based framework - at least one flash framework has duplicated the same collaboration of patterns. Details of that can be found on our blog. Cheers, Alistair
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Alistar, I may have come across wrong in the blog post, I really do not mean to bash the book. Mostly I was just stating that two days in, the book really just isn't what I was expecting. I am used to macromedia press books like Ben Forta's Coldfusion Advanced Web Application Construction Kit, that has a whole language reference in an appendix and has examples and short tutorials throughtout the book. I just assumed (wrongly) that this book would be similar. Thanks for those other resources. I have already joined the yahoo flexcoders list (man that is an active list!) and definately looking for as many links as possible. I have definately not given up on the book, I will definately post some updates as I go along too. Thanks for taking the time to comment here!
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Hi Ryan, I didn't read your post as a book-bashing - maybe I came across wrong in my comment :) I just thought I'd try to explain our motivation for the book - if we'd provided a reference in the book, it would have at least doubled in page count, and been a few months later! We really should get an errata online somewhere.... Cheers, Alistair
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Im glad you didn't think of it that way, it definately was not my intentions. Yes, an errata page would be nice to reference. And I also understand about the book being twice as thick if you had included a reference. Unfortunately, the reference on livedocs is quite hard to use though, at least compared to the coldfusion livedocs. Thanks again for commenting. I really appreciate your input. I just prefer to learn by example most of the time, and just wish I could find a good reference that just goes step by step through some examples that would teach me most of what I need to know.
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Ryan, Oops, I forgot to check if partners had put the new 4-day course out on the calendars yet. Sorry about that. One more thought on the Macromedia Flex classes ... There is a more established 3-day class, "Developing Rich Internet Applications with Macromedia Flex". This is already on many partner's schedules. And, believe it or not, a partner has a Memphis class scheduled for July 20-22. So at least this time Macromedia does have the midsouth covered :-) For this 3-day class, though, it is best if you have your feet underneath you first. Oh, and sorry about that long url yesterday messing up the design. g
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Dont worry about it Greg, I need to fix the design where something like that wont break the design. Thats crazy that there is a class in Memphis, maybe we can start getting some more Macromedia centered stuff around here! Yeah, I think Ill just keep tryin to learn on my own, I may think about a class a little later in the year. Unless I can get a client that just wants to send me...