UK JUGS

Flex on Java - Review by Ashish Kulkarni.

A beautifully written book that is a must have for every Java Developer.

Adobe Flex is capturing a niche in the market for delivering Rich Internet Applications. With the help of this book, you can bring this exciting richness of user interface to a Java Application, both on Web and desktop on a variety of operating systems taking the Write-once-run-anywhere (WORA) slogan of Sun to a new level.

The authors not only describe the intricacies of Flex and all its surrounding technologies such as MXML, ActionScript, BlazeDS, etc., they also give a fantastic in-depth yet, to-the-point explanation to any Java Developer who wants to start using automated build and test tools such as Hudson.

This is one of the few books out there that doesn't just give you snippets of code and leave you to figure out where they fit. It gives you entire files and explains exactly where in the directory structure of the project do they fit.

With the help of an OpenSource project - the XPlanner - the authors explain the process of migrating a traditional web application using Java technologies to use Flex as a front-end. And in doing so, they take an OpenSource java web application that uses Struts, Spring and Hibernate and give it a face-lift using Flex.

At every step, where they introduce a new technology, the authors have made sure they explain their reasons and give detailed configuration steps.

Despite talking about so many different technologies, the authors do not try to sell you any expensive tools or lock you in with any vendor. They rely on freely available tools such as Eclipse, Flex SDK, ANT, Maven and Hudson.

As a bonus, the book also talks about how to use Flex with Groovy and Grails.

This book holds your hands every step of the way from design to development to deployment and testing. It is a well written reference that you will find yourselves coming back to time after time.

Authors: Bernert Allmon and Jeremy Anderson

Publisher: Manning Publications
MEAP Release: May 2008
ISBN: 1-933988-79-7