Is there anyone in this group who's an expert on both Flex3.5a and
ColdFusion 9 that I could "buy" for a few hours?
I'm extremely confused on this particular problem I'm having, and I
just can't find the solution on the web. At least, not a solution I
can understand... So I'd be willing to pay someone for their
expertise... But it's gotta be true expertise - not a situation like
"sure I'll take your money and give you what help I can..." I need
guarantees here... The problem gets solved or you don't get paid --
that kind of thing.
So if you're truly an expert in Flex 3.5a and ColdFusion 9 (both, not
one or the other), then I really want to negotiate a per-hour rate
with you for some one-on-one help...
Or, perhaps someone knows of a solution to this that can be found in
the (literally) millions of flex blog-posts on the Web... And I'm
just not searching correctly for it...
The problem I'm having is that I've written my program with Value
Objects, in order to easily pass data between my Flex App and the
ColdFusion back-end. (And to pass data between the various modules
within the Flex app as well, of course.)
This works great. Until a client says "Hey, we want to store THIS
instead of THAT data..." Then the clent's database has to be
modified, the .AS and .CFC files that define the structure of the VOs
have to be modified, all the references to the VOs in the code have
to be modified, and the entire program has to be re-compiled into a
new .SWF file. Then, of course, we have to be very careful to use
the correct version of the program on that client's data, and no
other clients' data... We wind up with 500 versions of the program
floating around. VERY bad solution...
From reading a few blog posts I can find, it does seem like there is
a way to create dynamic VOs based on the fields in the database. At
least in Flex, it seems possible. I haven't found a way to do it
with CF... I've only found a way to do it with something called
LINQ, and that apparently only works when you're using .NET 3.5 as
your back-end?
So all of this raises many questions for me:
1) How do I tell my Value Object what fields we've added to or
changed in the database without re-writing the entire VO (in both the
.AS and .CFC files) and re-compiling my program? In other words, I
need a dynamic VO that changes automatically with the database.
2) If there is a way to dynamically create a VO in Flex (and from a
few blog posts I've seen, it seems there is a way), how do I tell CF9
what the structure of that dynamically-created VO is?
3) How do I reference the dynamically-created fields in my Flex
program? Right now, for example, I can define a variable called
attendeeInfo as type attendeeInfoVO, and then reference things like
attendeeInfo.first_name, attendeeInfo.last_name, etc... How do I
reference a field programmatcially when I don't know what it's going
to be called beforehand?
4) How do I make my program display/modify those dynamically-created
fields? Right now, using the attendeeInfo example above, I can
create a TextInput with an id="firstNameInput" and just say
firstNameInput.text = "{attendeeInfo.first_name}". That won't work
when I have no clue how many dynamically-created fields there are, or
even what kind of data they're going to store... How do I deal with this?
5) Is there something other than VOs that would fit this situation
better? Am I limiting myself by using VOs in the first place? Is it
just plain impossible to do this with VOs? And if so, what are my
alternatives? I need a structured object that can be passed around
with a single reference -- I absolutely DO NOT want to pass a bunch
of references to a bunch of different variables -- that's why I used
VOs from the very beginning.
I hope by these questions, you can see how confused I am... And why
I'm willing to pay someone who's an expert in both Flex 3.5a and
ColdFusion 9 for their time in helping me understand what I can do
here. The entire project rests on me being able to do this -- the
way it's done currently is just not acceptable (having literally
hundreds of different versions of the program floating around is a
very bad way to handle this... There MUST be a better way... I'm
just not understanding it, and am willing to pay to gain that knowledge.)
Thanks a bunch for any suggestions you might give me. And I'm
totally serious about paying an expert for one-on-one help
here... Already talked to my boss and got some money cleared for
it... So if that's necessary, we're prepared for it.
(Oh, I've also posted this on Adobe Forums and FlexCoders Yahoo
group... So please don't tell me to ask there. It's already been
done, with no good responses (yet)... <GRIN>)
Thanks,
Laurence MacNeill
Mableton, Georgia, USA
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