So what do i mean by cocktail? For .net developers, adding Flex to the mix can seem like an extremely daunting task. Many of us have had to fight internal battles to use flex because it is still perceived by many as being unproven. With that in mind how much new technology needs to be added to the mix to get a Flex and DotNet environment up and going. Do we need to add some webORB, amf, magicDotNetFlexHookup.org, fluorine, arp, to make a scalable application? Adding all these ingredients in reminds me of the fountain pop machine at the roller rink when i was a kid. We used to mix all the various flavors together, root beer, coke, lemonade, etc… we called the drink a suicide.
The truth is we can make this drink with a simple mix.
Getting Started Mix (Flex with a Splash of .Net)
Flex 2 - Proven framework already being used by large dev companies, ebay, youtube, comcast, etc… (Also known as “The Thirst Mutilator”)
Cairngorm Framework - Tons of documentation and examples. Complex flavorings, no aftertaste.
Webservices - Done in .Net, simple effective
.Net - Its the rum and coke of the development world.
Now you have all the basics you need to get started. I’ve mixed the first drink together so you can try it.
*The example shows how to retrieve a strongly typed object from .net through Flex and Cairngorm. *
Quick Video Overview View
Flex Project: Download
.Net Project: Download
Related Links:
http://www.flex.org/dotnet/
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Cairngorm
Posts like this do not make the task of Flex and .NET integration any clearer. The soda fountain analogy tells you have not spent any time trying to understand what individual components do. Anyone who spends no more than 5 minutes would know that either WebORB of Fluorine can do an excellent job in bringing Flex and .NET together *alone*.
And by way choosing Cairngorm to do web-services based integration with .Net is a HUGE overkill. It is like using an elephant to move a matchbox.
Cheers,
Mark
Hey Mark,
1. Thanks for your non-biased opinion. I’m sure that fact that you work for WebOrb had nothing to do with your hostility.
2. My intention wasn’t to say that if you use Weborb your project is a goner. A suicide could be a good drink, but it was going to be difficult to tell what you would get when mixing so many things together. I was just trying to say that you can make larger applications in flex without the use of a third party software like weborb its a lot to take on all at once. Using your software is like putting you on my team. I trust microsoft and adobe and they’re cool on my team, you, I’m not sure about yet. If i’m on a tight deadline and we’re having a problem with webOrb(not the 10,000 dollar per cpu version), are you going to be there?
3. The session midnight coders did on Flex and .Net at the 360 conference was the most disappointing of the conference. Why? Because it was a glorified ad for your software. You didn’t go through any examples of alternative ways to build applications with Flex and .Net other than the webOrb way. Above is an example of that.
The real point of the article was to give a couple of simple building blocks for new flex developers (especially) .net developers that are apprehensive about trying flex. They can use these blocks to start understanding what a standard design pattern and framework is like to use in a flex application. Also, what is a simple way to connect it to their backend. After they gain trust with Flex itself then other elements can be introduced to them like WebOrb and Flourine.
Everyones got to start somewhere.
Thanks -s
PS: I will be putting up my thoughts on spending 5 minutes with webOrb in the future. I’ll email you.
Initapp, I understand your concerns and I am not asking for a leap of faith here. Anyone would have to make their own judgment on whether they trust a software vendor to be there when you need them. Thousands of developers from small to large companies use our product on daily basis and that explains why we’re still around after almost 5 years in business.
Sorry you didn’t find the session valuable. (Btw, was it my or Harris’ session?) I do not think we made any misrepresentations and did cover webservices and http services in addition to remoting.
I agree with Initapp that using webservices makes the task less daunting. And I know from experience that the lazy loading stuff of WebOrb isn’t necessarily making things any easier… Also the cryptic error messages like ‘error’ when using WebOrb aren’t really helping out when they should. The sad thing is that there isn’t any decent support for .NET datasets. Most developers still use them and it would make live for all .NET developers 100 times easier when interfacing with Flex. Sadly enough things aren’t really moving forward
Tom, sent you an email, but have not heard back.
I am not quite sure what you meant by lazy loading in WebORB? Could you please give me an example?
Also, as for the support for DataSets, they are supported out of the box. Here’s more info:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/net_interop_05.html
Hi,
Downloaded the codes, created the project but can’t run it. There is an error in servicelocator.mxml file, the message is:
“Could not resolve to a component implementation.”
I’ve seen this error several times but don’t know how to fix it. Does anybody?
Thanks
Hi again,
The tags were deleted by the commenting system, the full error message is
“Could not resolve <cairngorm:ServiceLocator> to a component implementation.”
Mark,
Sorry - lost your email on vacation (my webmail s*cks). Regarding my lazy loading comment: if you have related-tables 2 or more levels deep than it’s not really practical to work with event listeners. You could easily end up with hundred active event listeners. Being able to do synchronous calls would be soooo helpful in soo many cases. But I know that this has more to do with Flex than with WebOrb. Regarding the datasets: I didn’t mean to blame WebOrb for the lack of .NET dataset support. It’s just a shame that Flex (in combination for example with webservices) doesn’t support .NET datasets. Because what could be easier than getting a dataset from .NET in Flex, do updates in at (add/update/delete records) and send the diffgram using webservices back for processing by .NET… It could be that WebOrb supports this (could you confirm/deny this?) but this isn’t a cheap solution (in case of more than 1 processor)…
Regards,
Tom
Under linux, mxmlc client.mxml gives this error:
client.mxml(3): Error: Could not resolve to a component implementation
xmlns:ak33m=”http://ak33m.com/mxml” layout=”absolute”>
as3-rpclib.swc is in the same directory as client.xml and this is where I invoke mxmlc.
Hoping for your compassion and good will in helping me out…
Sorry for the noise. I had several tabs open and posted this comment in the wrong one…