Flex 2 : Intro

One might think why blog about Flex2 .. when Flex 3 is out ?
well even i dont know why ? all i can say is ... I like flex so thought need to start somewhere !

FLEX

Flex application take advantage of Flash player 9 runtime environment ( which inturn supports 3 ) Flex application can also interact with Javascript.

Flex 2 SDK consists of

1. the Flex framework (class library)
2. the Flex compilers,
3. the debugger,
4. the MXML
5. ActionScript programming languages
6. other utilities.

Flex applications consist of MXML ( set up the UI ) and ActionScript source files

1. MXML is used for
1. Visual components - set up UI
2. Non visual components - acess network based components ( like webservice ) server based resorces ( flex data service ) bindings ( between UI & data )
2. ActionScript - provides flowcontrol and object manupilation features

Flex applications do not directly connect to a database, you use other tools and services
such as PHP, ASP, JSP, Web services, Flex Data Services, ColdFusion Flash Remoting Services,
and so on.

The Flex platform supports a range of deployment models:

1. Client-side only Applications run on the client and use no server resources.
2. Access server data through simple RPC services - Applications interact with remote data through web services and HTTP services. The Flex HTTPService and WebService tags let you retrieve data from a remote server For security, by default Flash Player does not allow an application to access a remote data source from a domain other than the domain from which the application was served. Therefore, a remote server must either be in the same domain as the server hosting your application, or the remote server must define a crossdomain.xml file.
3. Flex Data Services - used to provide advanced features, such as data synchronization, security, and messaging.

Flex supports two versions of Flash Player

1. standard flash player
2. debug flash player

Some questions i couldnt answer
doesnt Flex use Http request / response at low level ? if yes then how ?
if yes why is it so fast than JSF etc ? may be because of Flash player ??

May be when i read more will be able to do so

Interesting Link
http://coenraets.org/testdrive/flex4j/index.htm