Adobe Flex is revolutionizing Flash development. Finally, Flash developers have comprehensive tools equal to those available for computer languages like Java. With the latest versions of Flex, there's a solution to practically any rich Internet application development challenge. This book presents more than 100 of the best of these solutions.
Author Marco Casario is singularly well qualified to write this book. He's been working with Flex from the get-go. His company, Comtaste, specializes in building rich Internet, mobile, and Web 2.0 applications (including enterprise Flex projects that are right at the cutting edge). He teaches Flex on behalf of folks like, yes, Adobe. Maybe you've even heard him speak, at conferences like Adobe MAX, 360Flex, AdobeLive, or the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Summit.
The solutions he presents here run the gamut -- from basic stuff (adding global CSS styles, extending Flex's built-in controls with ActionScript, using data binding) all the way through improving application startup performance. Everything's been updated to reflect the brand-new Flex 3 platform and Adobe Integrated Runtime. (Casario had to stop in his tracks and make substantial revisions in his partially complete manuscript to make that happen: You'll be glad he did.)
To begin with, there's comprehensive coverage of working with data. Validating it. Formatting it. Managing it (including the use of Flex's new collection classes). Working with remote data using RPC (and consuming web services). Displaying data, with Flex's powerful list-based controls. But there's much more here: designing and coding application look-and-feel; application compilation and deployment; and the most thorough discussion of Flex security you're ever likely to need. Bill Camarda, from the February 2008 Read Only
