Farata Systems      

I’ve started looking into JavaFX and plan to publish a couple of articles going through development of an application that real-world software developers can relate to. Enough of the demos of bubbles moving up and down in a glass with water. Can’t recall any application in my rather long career that would require to program something like this.

While looking at the JavaFX way to do stuff, I subconsciously compare it with Flex.  So far as expected, Flex is a hundred miles ahead. But to be fair, one shouldn’t forget that we are comparing products of 1.0 and 3.0 versions. At this point, JavaFX would require to do a lot more of manual coding in Java than I’d like to see.

Lack of such important  components as data grid would require you to wrap Java’s JTable and program to it. You need to program such basic things as a hyperlink component…

Eclipse plugin for JavaFX is not real. As of today (January of 2009), to use JavaFX you need to install NetBeans 6.5 and have a background of  a Java Swing programmer, which will be an obstacle for many Java developers.

But, let’s give this product a little bit of time to mature.

I’ll write my first JavaFX article for Java Developer’s Journal in February. BTW, have you seen a new look of JDJ and  Flex  Developer’s Journal ? Expect some more very interesting announcements from sys-con that may turn you into a published author.  Just keep an eye on the word Ulitzer.

Yakov Fain

The number of software developers who are comfortable with Flex has reached critical mass and we started getting requests for advanced Flex training. People not just want to learn Flex, they want to use it properly.
We have created a two-day curriculum for Enterprise architects and already successfully delivered it to a group of application and enterprise architects of a major insurance company.

Now we’ve decided to offer it as a public training to help enterprise architects, development managers and team leaders to understand how to run real-world Adobe Flex projects.  Attendees will get an overview of frameworks, tools, utilities and best practices of RIA development with Adobe Flex and Java. This technical event will help you to avoid typical architectural mistakes usually made on first projects with Flex.
This is not a hands-on workshop, but rather a fast paced immersion into the world of RIA with Adobe Flex. Here’s a brief overview of the curriculum:

Adobe Flex Architecture
Thinking in Flex
Accessing Enterprise Server Tier
LiveCycle Data Services/Blaze Data Services Architecture
Flex Communication Protocols
Flex Messaging:
RPC Services
Data Management Services
Modularization of Flex enterprise applications
Flex Portal Applications
Integrating Flex applications with External applications
Staffing Flex projects
Comparing MVC Architectural Flex Frameworks
Overview of Clear Toolkit framework
Troubleshooting AMF

Overview of testing tools for RIA
Automation of ANT script creation
Flex Developer’s Workstation
Minimizing the time of Initial Application loading

This training will take place on March 2nd and 3rd in New York City. Visit http://www.faratasystems.com for details.

If you are just starting working with Flex, consider attending five-day Adobe Certified Flex training that will take place in New York City on March 23-27, 2009.Visit http://www.faratasystems.com for details.

We are also working on the courseware for the advanced two-day hands-on workshop for Flex developers. The first day will be titled “Unleashing the power of Design Patterns in Flex”.  The second day goes by the working title “Enhancing Flex components”.  This training will be offered to the public in April 2009.
Any of these curriculums as well as two-day introduction to Adobe AIR can also be delivered onsite at your organization.

If you can’t attend our training, consider reading our upcoming O’Reilly book “Enterprise Development with Flex.” The first rough cut chapter is already available to the subscribers of Safari Books at http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596801465.
Yakov Fain

The rough cuts version of the first chapter of the book written by Farata principals is available on Safari books online. The working title of the book is Enterprise Development with Flex, and the printed copy of the book should be available in May-June of 2009.
Here’s a brief description of the book we’ve got from O’Reilly:

This groundbreaking book shows Flex developers exactly what’s required to build production-quality Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for the enterprise. Part of the popular Adobe Developer Library co-published by O’Reilly and Adobe, Enterprise Development with Flex goes well beyond Flex tutorials and product documentation to suggest best practices, compare frameworks and tools, and offer efficient techniques for developing enterprise RIAs. The authors provide lots of practical examples and rely on their own considerable experience with enterprise Flex applications to help you overcome challenges during your project’s lifecycle.

With this unique advanced-level Flex book, you will:

•    Choose among several frameworks to build Flex applications, including Cairngorm, PureMVC, Mate, and Clear Toolkit
•    Learn specifics of applying selected design patterns for creating user interfaces with Flex
•    Learn how to extend Flex framework and build your own component library
•    Minimize the need of manual programming  with Business Style Sheets (BSS)
•    Discover how to use some internals of  Adobe’s LiveCycle Data Services (LCDS)
•    Integrate functions from Adobe’s LiveCycle ES SOA platform with your existing Flex-based applications
•    Construct Flex libraries that you can reuse across portals and other applications
•    Develop a sample AIR application that supports sales force and can work in occasionally connected mode automatically synchronizing local and remote databases.
•    Learn how to modularize large applications
•    Get familiar with solutions that allow leveraging AMF protocol and synchronizing Flex client data modifications with the with BlazeDS-based servers
•    Determine the actual performance of your application, and get suggestions for writing efficient code in MXML and ActionScript
•    Enhance Flex components to support PDF generation on the client

Enterprise Development with Flex also offers solutions for reporting, suggestions for equipping your Flex team with proper tools and methodologiessetting up a version control repository, guidelines for determining the skill sets required for the project, and much more. Although this book is in progress, you can still get going with these advanced solutions through our Rough Cuts edition, which lets you read the manuscript as it evolves, either online or via PDF.

After successful beta of Clear Toolkit 3.0 and release of 3.1 the number of Flex developers who use Clear Toolkit 3 components steadily grows.

We thank all our users for support and encourage them to submit requests for new features and bug reports at http://mantis.faratasystems.com.

Here’s the roadmap for Clear Toolkit 4 for the year of 2009:

1. Offer data syncrhonization solution for AIR/BlaseDS applications – March 2009
2. Enhance Flex UI component to support PDF generation on the client – April 2009
3. Release documentation on classes from Clear component library (clear.swc) – May 2009.
4. Offer a solution for Flex-based portals – May 2009
5. Open source most of the components of Clear Toolkit – August 2009

All components of Clear Toolkit will remain free of charge under MIT license.
Production support is available for purchase.

Yakov Fain

I’ll be delivering an advanced preso on use of some design patterns in Flex at the meetings of New Jersey Flex User Group (Jan 28), New York Flex UG (Feb 19), and Chicago Flex UG on March 18.  Please stop by if you’re in the area.

Here’s a short description of the talk:

Design patterns suggest approach to common problems that arise during software development regardless of what programming language. But implementation of these patterns is specific to the language. The main goal of this presentation is to highlight selected patterns as they may be implemented taking advantages of Flex framework. You’ll see a not so obvious implementation of a Singleton, how a Proxy can dramatically change the behavior of an object, why a Mediator is a must-have in each Flex application. Do you know how to write Data Transfer Objects that are so important in Flex remoting? If time permits, we’ll review the Class Factory pattern too.

This talk is based on some materials from the upcoming O’Reilly book “Enterprise Development with Flex”.

Will be glad to see you at one of these meetings,
Yakov Fain

Flex 3 components use  namespace defined as xmlns:mx=“http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml”. If you’ll create an application in Flex 4, it uses another namespace: xmlns=”http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009”, and the prefix mx: is not defined there and causes compilation errors.

While porting apps from Flex 3 to 4, you can either stick to the 2006 namespace or define additional namespace  as xmlns:mx=”http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009”.

Your third choice is not using mx: prefix with legacy Flex 3 components. You can read more about namespaces in MXML 2009 specification at this URL.

Yakov

The registration for January 29-30 seminar for architects is  closed, and we’ve announced a new one  that will take place on March 2 and 3, 2009 in New York City.  Please register soon as the early bird price for that one will last till the end of January. Details at  http://www.eventbrite.com/event/247789144.

We are also planning to run a one day Advanced Flex seminar on March 4, 2009 that will cover such topics as Selected Design Patterns and Extending Flex Components. We’ll announce the details of this one shortly.

To the best of my knowledge, no other training center offers such advanced curriculum for Flex developers and architects.  Start your next Flex project right from the beginning – register sooner than later.

The same curriculum can be taught privately at your organization too. Please fill out the Contact Us form at http://www.faratasystems.com if interested.

Happy New Year,
Yakov Fain