What is Chimp?

Chimp is a simple component for doing role based permissions in Flex.  It uses metadata and a generic ArrayCollection of permission strings to display the proper components for a given set of user roles.  You can find more info about the project at: http://www.gorillalogic.com/chimp.

Flex 4 Update

Shortly after I posted Chimp in 2009, Adobe began releasing early versions of Flex 4.  Every since then, I am occasionally asked about Chimp’s Flex 4 compatibility.  Well, I finally stopped procrastinating and posted a Flex 4 sample on the google code site.  It’s a conversion of the existing Flex 3 sample.  Everything worked with no updates to the existing Chimp swc.

Please let me know if you are having in Flex 4 specific issues.

James Ward and I have updated our Dzone Refcard on using BlazeDS & Spring.  You can check it out at: http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/flex-4-and-spring-3

Dzone.com / JavaLobby has published my ‘A Deep Dive into Flash Builder 4‘ article.  I wrote it over Christmas on the beta 2 release of Flash Builder, so hopefully everything is still up-to-date now that Flash Builder is finally out for production.

Give it a read and let me know if you have any feedback.

At Gorilla Logic we are proud of using our FlexMonkey tool to test the enterprise Flex applications we are building, but my curiosity has been growing at how others in the community are testing their Flex & AIR applications.

• What are you using (FlexMonkey, FlexUnit, Mercury QTP, Selenium, RIATest, FunFX, etc)?
• Have you run into major pitfalls with your Flex testing?
• Are the tools you are using allowing your team to achieve your testing goals?
• How would you rate the state of testing in Flex development?

Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you.

Like many Flex developers, I came to Flex development after a long stay in the Java world. For many years, Java and the surrounding community provided an exciting technical playground. Overall, the community gave developers like myself an amazing set of tools and an excellent group of thought leaders. Yet, we can look back now and realize how many silly ideas there were at the height of Java. I have long thought that Cairngorm borrows on some of my least favorite of these bad ideas, and now it looks like they are continuing down that road.

Now, they are attempting to expand from just a framework to some sort of Flex MVC framework think-tank. Yakov Fain’s reaction to this is priceless:

First, let me ask Java developers a question. Imagine that one day you wake up and read the following announcement, “As of today, Spring framework is the foundation for delivering of successful J2EE projects. In contrast to earlier versions, many parts apply across frameworks. So, if you are using Struts, JSF, and especially Tapestry, just forget about all these complex to pronounce names. From now on, no matter what framework you use, you are actually using Spring’.

Some of you would think, “Yakov is either out of his mind or is writing this blog sitting in one of the coffeshops in Amsterdam”. Wrong! I’m just reading an announcement about the upcoming release of the popular Adobe framework Cairngorm 3: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/cairngorm/Cairngorm+3

When I first saw Cairngorm (post), it was easy to understand what they were trying to do, as the framework is so heavily influenced by the original version of Struts and the Core J2EE Patterns. Unfortunately, Struts was barely a fit for the original problems it was attempting to solve, and are completely inappropriate for building client-side applications within a real runtime. Struts used an adaptation of the MVC pattern called MVC2/Model 2, which was created to deal with building user interface within request/response model. This model is completely at odds with building a rich Internet application.

So, obviously, I find the move to hold Cairngorm up as a template for architecting Flex applications a bit concerning. Beyond that, one of the other things in the Java community that never proved to bring fruit was the desire to standardize anything and everything, which this idea seems born out of.  I am actually foggy at best with what they are trying to accomplish, and find it completely bizarre that they would try and morph a framework into this “thing.”  Do we really need some sort of Flex specific think tank on a long established pattern?  Also, it seems very bold to attempt to group the work of so many others under their umbrella.

Is this just an attempt to keep the brand name relevant of a framework whose time has come and gone?

I haven’t been very active with writing for InfoQ.com lately. My lack of activity has been primarily due to time constraints, but has also been because I have been a bit bored with the recent RIA news. So, I was excited to get ‘back in the saddle’ with a post on the release of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0, as both releases are cause for excitement to anyone developing RIAs. The release will improve the development experience for Flex and AIR developers, but will also serve to move the ball forward in the space.

Here is my write up: http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/flash-10.1-and-air-2.0