Jeremy Anderson

Shiv Nb wrote:When we mean Flex on Java, does it mean can we integrate Flex on any Java framework?

By Flex on Java we mean, here's how you can integrate a Flex frontend with a Java server-side.

Paul Sturrock wrote:Hi Bernard and Jeremy. Does your book cover much about integrating with particular servlet containers or application servers? I've found fairly poor support for some fairly key architectural features of Flex if I'm using containers other than Tomcat that would have been great to know before trying to user them (and Adobe's documentation certainly leaves a gap in the market for someone to fill!). How much depth do you go into with things like their custom security model for example? Do you talk about more "enterprise" topics like Flex's behaviour on clustered servers etc?

I'm not sure what you mean by integrating with a particular servlet container. I typically write portable applications that don't rely on any container specific integrations, and as far as I can tell BlazeDS is container agnostic. As far as security goes, we leverage Spring Security on the server side to authenticate and authorize the users and a simple login form in the Flex application.

Flex shouldn't behave any differently in a clustered environment than a non-clustered environment as the state should be maintained in the application itself and all calls back to the server should be stateless in nature.

This is a good place to start... http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining.html?sdid=FCMWB

If you're really set on buying a book, I would pick up Flex 4 in Action. Then once you know the Flex basics, you should check out the most excellent book Flex on Java. ;)

Santhosh Venkatesan wrote:Its been quite a while since servlet 3.0 specs came and we see some app servers started supporting it. so is adobe concerned with providing blazeds equipped with using the Java NIO(non blocking input/output) with its messaging channel endpoints? I read that along with this specs the entire blazeds j2ee project stack will have a better performance output when its under some sizable load..

So can someone tell me is there anything much to be gained from using servlet 3.0 specs with blazeds beyond this, please share your thoughts.

Regarding the book promo(Flex and Java) went through the contents was glad to see some sections specifically for Blazeds remoting and messaging, definitley also chapter 7. Expected some more with AIR section

To be honest, I've not really been following the Servlet 3.0 spec, so I am not sure about the NIO benefits.

With regards to having more in the AIR section, the purpose of our book was not to teach someone Flex or AIR, but simply to show how to integrate these two technologies with Java.

Exposing your services using BlazeDS and SOAP are no longer mutually exclusive. There's no reason you can use those same services for both, these days it's just a matter of adding another annotation to your service methods. That way you can expose them as SOAP web services for the clients that want to use SOAP, and BlazeDS services for your Flex clients.

I tend to avoid using the Java Collections classes when doing SOAP web services as they're not really recommended per the w3c recommendations. To see the real benefits of using objects, you may want to look into using BlazeDS rather than SOAP.

IntelliJ has some really good Flex integration.

I know Griffon is supposed to be like the Rails of desktop development, but what advantages does it offer over something like Spring RCP or Eclipse RCP? If I still have to code all the swing for things like window layout and docking, am I really gaining anything?

David, I was wondering if you could share the table of contents for this book. I looked at the Packt publishing site, and there is no table of contents available there.

Does this updated version of Struts in Action contain any information on Velocity? Now that Struts 2 is using it for the HTML being output by their custom tags, I'm finding myself needing to learn more about it.

Well first, struts2 removes the need for a separate formbean object.

As for type conversion, it's fairly simple to create the type converters yourself if one doesn't exist. Look at the DateConverter provided by the struts2 starter maven archetype.

public class DateConverter extends StrutsTypeConverter { public Object convertFromString(Map context, String[] values, Class toClass) { if (values != null && values.length > 0 && values[0] != null && values[0].length() > 0) { SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd"); try { return sdf.parse(values[0]); } catch(ParseException e) { throw new TypeConversionException(e); } } return null; } public String convertToString(Map context, Object o) { if (o instanceof Date) { SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd"); return sdf.format((Date)o); } return ""; } }
[ April 29, 2008: Message edited by: Jeremy Anderson ]

I seem to remember there being some problems with running JUnit4 tests with netbeans because of it's tight integration with Ant. Does anybody know if there are still issues with this?

Originally posted by Adam Myatt:

I particularly like the fact that when developing a NetBeans plugin or RCP app, you can use great tools like the Matisse GUI builder to design and quickly lay out GUI components for your app. Also Swing based, which is a plus in my mind.

If I'd have heard you say that a couple of years ago, I would have fallen out of my chair laughing. I have to admit though, Swing has come a long way. Do you know if it's possible to use Groovy to develop with the RCP? I would imagine so since it is after all just Java. I'm a huge fan of the builder syntax (http://groovy.codehaus.org/Swing+Builder) especially when it comes to developing Swing apps. I tend to not use WYSIWYG design tools when developing apps whether they're GUI or web apps.

Is there a steep learning curve with doing Netbeans RCP applications? I've looked at Eclipse RCP in the past and it seemed like there was a steep learning curve with trying to get even a simple application up and running.

With JavaFX being a very new player in the RIA game, how would you try to convince someone to use JavaFX for their next RIA instead of something like Flex which has already established itself?