Word, Ruboss was just recently released and it allows you to create Flex components with a Rails back end. It was built according to the most hardcore design patterns and ideas I've seen. A huge problem I have always found is that there are very few if any solid implementations of some key features that would make Flex, and Flash, truly remarkable: file transfer, user authentication, database access, and tagging. This is because there aren't many solid tutorials, I feel, on using design patterns for data-driven interactive Flex/Flash projects in the open source community.
With Flex and Rails now integrated with Ruboss, it's quite possible to build a social networking site in Flex. Insoshi is an open source social networking platforms for Ruby on Rails, and because it follows the RESTful design patterns fairly well, it will be easy to use Ruboss to create Flexible Rails UIComponents on top of Insoshi. In this thread, post any links you know of that will help the community collect all the research and pieces necessary to make Flex THE solution for Web 2.0 endeavors. I have a feeling that within the next few months, with the release of the book Enterprise Flexible Rails, we will start to see Interactive Flex-style Facebooks and Amazons because of how well this framework implements design patterns. There are a lot of "Flex Components" on the internet, but there is really a lack of design patterns and consistency. Post your thoughts on design patterns, too, and what you think are the best strategies for building Flex components. I've written some stuff on this topic at http://www.systemsofseven.com/blog/make/21 . Paul Williams from Adobe is doing some excellent work unit testing different Presentation patterns with Flex too. It's about time for a unified set of Design Patterns for building data-driven Flex components, so everything is separated out and so everyone can modify any component without spending too much time figuring out how this one person decided to structure his/her code. Then we will start seeing Flex everywhere! And everyone can contribute quickly Adios, Lance
