Preface
With the advent of the Flex framework,Adobe provided an application-orientated frame-
work to make the production of rich, immersive solutions aimed at providing end-user
benefits beyond just “looking cool.”
To achieve this,Adobe focused on a component-based approach to the Flex frame-
work, making the development of this new breed of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
easier and faster to develop. However, although there is a veritable chocolate box of com-
ponents to choose from within the Flex framework, it appeared to be like dabbling in the
black arts if you wanted to create your own components.
That’s where this book comes in. It provides you with the knowledge and experience
to help you develop new components for Flex 4. So much has changed since Flex 3, and
this book makes it so you can speed up your own team’s development processes and
understand how you can create, package, and distribute your components to a wider,
more public audience.
Audience for This Book
As with all technologies, as they grow in functionality, the desire to develop bigger,
brighter, and better solutions with them reaches a tipping point.At that point, two things
happen. First, there is a sudden increase in popularity, and second, the roles and responsi-
bilities that existed for the teams who use these technologies start to specialize.
The Flex framework is no different.When Flex first appeared, you were generally just
classed as a Flex (or RIA) developer; however, as projects grew in scope and teams
expanded, the necessity to specialize in some aspect of RIA development became appar-
ent.To this end, you can now find that most Flex developers will tell you that they are a
“Flex developer, but I specialize in Enterprise,” or “I specialize in data visualization.”
Personally, I specialize in component development. Not too long ago, I was called in on a
Flex project by various clients for just this purpose.They had the core Flex development
team in place, but they needed a component specialist to build specific, discrete function-
ality within a “black box” set of components.
Now, it’s unlikely you are currently specializing in component development. But you
are obviously interested in finding out more, if nothing else.And for that, I warmly wel-
come you to an exciting segment of Flex development.
What type of person do you need to be? Well, beyond the requirements detailed next
in the section,“Who Should Read This Book,” you need to think both in the macrocosm
and the microcosm. By this, I mean you can understand the entire Flex framework from
an operational sense by understanding it from a component level.That way, you can make
efficient and generic components that operate in the majority of use cases and situations.
By generic, I mean little or no external constraints to function; something that is dis-
cussed in Chapter 9,“Manipulating Data.”