We have been using Adobe Flex for the past year and have really liked it.
It would be hard to call it "blazing" and "bloat" does seem like it might
apply to some extent, but on the other hand it does so many nice things for
us it is hard to argue with. MXML is very powerful, but there is certainly
a big learning curve. For basic stuff, buttons and containers and text,
it's easy to get started. There are lots of subtle details though, so when
you start wanting to do things in ways the Flex authors didn't anticipate it
often takes experimentation to find a way that works. The Flex framework
code is open source at least, so you can always dig into that and see what
it's doing.
We have also used Cairngorm, with mixed results. Cairngorm doesn't really
give you much code, it is mostly a set of design patterns. Some of the
important code it does give is a "controller" which connects Cairngorm
Events to Cairngorm Commands. Cairngorm events inherently know their
dispatcher, which is a singleton, so you can just fire off events like so:
new SaveGameEvent(game, user).dispatch();
and the controller connects that to the appropriate SaveGameCommand. We've
come to the conclusion that Cairngorm is great for situations where most
user actions imply immediate communications with a server, but not so useful
for situations where user actions are just manipulating data internal to the
.swf. We have ended up using Cairngorm Events and Commands just on the
networking side of our app, and for everything else we do more of a basic
Model/View pattern.
I don't believe Cairngorm relies on Flex, but Flex gives you "data binding"
which works very nicely with Cairngorm. Flex data binding lets you mark
certain state variables with [Bindable] and then the compiler builds
data-change events for you. Then your view mxml classes use the data
binding syntax like <Label text="{game.description}"/> and the view updates
automagically whenever the Game's description field changes. A Cairngorm
command might query a server and then the server-response-handler in the
command can set game.description.
Dave
On 11/14/08, Joel Stransky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> So I'm trying to nail down a work flow for building flash sites (read: not
> flash applications) in as3. I had just about mastered fast seo friendly as2
> sites when as3 came out and now that I'm making a concerted effort to
> modernize my skills I feel like I'm starting from scratch in many ways.
>
> Enter frameworks. So far I've looked at
> Gaia<http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/index.php>,
> PureMVC <http://puremvc.org/content/view/67/178/>,
> Mate<http://mate.asfusion.com/>and Enterprise
> Architect <http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/index.html> (please add
> any others I haven't listed)
> On the upside, I like the idea of rapid development and reduced monotony.
> But the most important thing to me is extremely lightweight blazing fast
> flash using the least amount of bloat. In a perfect scenario, I don't want
> extra file size due to wrappers of core commands.
>
> So, assuming I'm comfortable with the file size/rapid development trade off
> with one of these packages, my concern then becomes one of dependency and
> learning curve. After learning a new API, am I going to have to hack or
> work
> around it for those interesting situations that always seem to pop up? What
> if something major changes on the flashplayer and my chosen framework
> doesn't address it? I fear becoming too dependent on a 3rd party api.
>
> I'd really like to know what you guys are using, any development horror
> stories you have because of it as well as any insight you can provide about
> the concerns I've listed.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> --
> --Joel Stransky
> stranskydesign.com
> _______________________________________________
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>
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