1. Flash Developer = Flex GUI developers
2. Visual Flex Developer = Flex component developers
3. Enterprise Flex Developer = Flex architects

Regarding the framework argument, well I’ve only just started messing with frameworks on a large enough scale to warrant using commands and delegates and that sort of thing, as I’m coming at Flex from an ActionScript 3.0 background, so take this for what it’s worth. But it seems to me that an architectural framework on top of the Flex framework is useful for abstracting Services from Commands from Views, in other words creating more abstracted MVC architectures so that a) you can compartmentalize your workflow in large teams, and b) if you need to change how the application is connected or how the model is updated, you don’t have to rewire your entire application. Trust me, I’ve done and seen enough procedural code in my day to know the value of coding to framework of some kind. Like someone said in a previous post, it’s the difference between an application framework and an architectural framework. From what I’ve experienced thus far, you need both to create an app of any scale, though I could be wrong.

1. Even if developers will grasp how to write code going through all these hurdles required to locate a hidden service, this process will litter your application code with lots of unnecessary objects. Becide, the code is being read a lot more often than written. No problem, a new hire will spend a week ($500*5=$2500) and will be comfortable too.

Oh, btw, you have to register one command per an event. What if I\’d like to have two handlers for the same event? I know, you can find a workaround pretty fast.

Last week, my client that uses modules ran into another issue – they\’ve noticed that re-visiting the same screen leads multiple firing of the same event, which substantially affects performance. Oops…You have to have only one controller per application…no controllers in modules.

Anyway, this blog is not the right place for discussions of the pros and cons of Flex framework. We (Farata) are planning to create and publish a couple of demo applications that will illustrate how to create the same app with and without frameworks.

Modules was not difficult. Flex 3 helped alot.

We have an application at the moment using AMF0 remoting and we are looking at migrating to BlazeDS soon.
Due to the separation of concerns in our client side architecture replacing the AMF0 delegate library with a new AMF3 Delegate library is not very complicated.

For sure making and handling HTTPService calls in a mediator is quicker and easier to code, but it would require a more delicate handling of the situation if a change like the change I proposed above was required.

If I get a new guy to write a cairngorm app once, he knows the sequence.
It’s not rocket science and it’s a repeated process.
Introduce code gen and there’s your standards and convention in place.

For most of the new guys these frameworks seem intimidating the first day, by the end of the week, they’ve built the first simple app.
The week after they already feel comfortable to get their feet wet in the big pool.

Here’s an easier way to do the same thing that’s offered by an XYZ framework: write a half dozen of ActionScript classes, re-route your click event through a couple of Singletons apply a command pattern – create commands and register command handlers, write a Delegate class and hide there that very same HTTPService. Do not forget to implement the proper interfaces, and if you did everything right, then XYZ will return you the result through a bound control . It’s sooooo easy to get developers up to speed.! And this is a simple case when everything is sitting in the same little application. No modules. Not more than one event handler per command.

This is what happens to people who are developing frameworks while intoxicated by Java Struts framework. But if I can kinda understand (not endorse) people who developed Struts – at least they built a framework on top of the raw language – it’s very hard for me to accept a framework built on top of another framework.

extra budget for a new project called “Removal of the XYZ framework”.
The good old XYZ framework eh..
It seems certain XYZ frameworks are getting a hammering from a lot of respected developers over the past few months.

We have yet to ask for that extra budget yet.
In defense of application frameworks I must say that it is easier to get developers up to speed on large projects that use well documented frameworks.

Karsten