Effortless Flex 4 Development

by Larry Ullman

First the Web was all static content (HTML). Then as more was expected of sites, server-side technologies like PHP became necessary. But now Rich Internet Applications (RIA) put a lot of the functionality back in the Web browser, so a server-side technology alone will no longer suffice. Developers who have been doing server-side work for years need to broaden their horizons to provide a rich client-side experience. Enter Effortless Flex 4 Development by bestselling author Larry Ullman.

Flash-Flex is a powerful duo for providing a rich, client-side experience. The first third of this book covers the fundamentals of creating Flex apps. The second third is about getting, displaying, validating, and sending locally, remotely, and from the user. All server-side code in this book is PHP, and this data-centric view and larger support for PHP is a key focus in Flex 4. The last third is about rounding out the know-how for full application development.

Taking advantage of what Flex 4 has to offer, developers can quickly learn how to create RIAs, some of which interact with PHP scripts running on the server. Adobe has open-sourced Flex and made its SDK freely available, so it is becoming more attractive to developers who prefer open-source projects over commercial ones. Since the author is writing this book as a developer/programmer for other developers/programmers (as opposed to a designers), there is a predominance of how-tos and real-world practices.

455 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Larry Ullman is a writer, Web and software developer, trainer, instructor, speaker, and consultant. He has written 23 books and numerous articles. His books have sold over 350,000 copies world wide in more than 20 languages. As his readers, students, and co-workers can attest, Larry’s strength is in Translating Geek into English: converting the technical and arcane into something comprehensible and useful.