Presenter: Scott Davis

• Flex plugin for Grails isn’t a simple plugin like the YUI plugin
  • technologies are too different from one another to fully integrate
• What’s Flex?
  • free open source framework, but Flex Builder costs
  • lots of technologies floating around
    • some free of cost, some free and open source, some for pay
• we are living in the era of the RIA
  • poorly defined
  • involves flex, air, silverlight, openlaszlo, ajax, java fx
    • java fx is applets redux–that’s how they’re deployed
      • some nice new stuff, but still 1995 technology with a new marketing plan
  • adobe has crushing lead in the ria space
  • lots of politics come into play–e.g. no flash player on iphone
    • apple converts all youtube content to quicktime to avoid having to use the flash player
• have macromedia to thank for the ria term
  • idea was can’t use same technology already in browser for rich experience
  • solution is plugins into the browser
• plugins aren’t new
  • applets introduced in 1995
  • lasting achievement of java applets is the warning asking whether or not you trust the applet
• fast-forward to 2005
  • jesse james garret coins “AJAX” term
    • blog post discusses how web developers are envious of desktop developers
    • pointed to google suggest and google maps as examples
    • major thing is eliminating the page loads
    • amazing thing about google maps is they did it without a plugin
• great divide (?)
  • can either have js + css + html, or can use a plugin
  • walls are starting to crumble however–hybrid development
  • apple desktop widgets
    • native part of OS but live in a different space
    • create in html, css, and js
    • use the webkit framework for rendering
    • gadgets in windows are similar
  • palm pre
    • webos
    • build apps with basic web languages
  • google chrome OS
    • OS based on chrome web browser
    • isn’t a scrim on top of OS like widgets and gadgets
  • notion of pulling up a web browser to run webapps will soon be seen as rather quaint
  • Adobe AIR is one attempt to eliminate the browser from the equation
  • idea of ubiquitous web also well represented by iTunes
    • webkit browser baked in
  • future of software development — of course it’s web enabled
    • the idea of web/not web will fade into the woodwork
• twitter example of how ecosystem can develop around an API and core data
  • twitter doesn’t have to own the hardware and software

Nuts and Bolts of Flex

• grails plugins assume you’re conversant with the acronyms and technologies involved with Flex
• flash player is where flex apps run
• flash player revs about every year, and the new players get adopted very quickly–huge adoption rate
  • 80%+ of users are on the most recent version
  • many, many more people run old versions of java as compared to flash
• flash player on most mobile platforms but not on iphone
• adobe recently released tools to allow for compilation of flex apps into native iphone apps
• flash offers similar “write once run anywhere” experience
  • java: class files run in JVM, JVM native to OS
  • flash: swf files run in Flash Player, Flash Player native to OS
  • javascript model is a bit different–still breaking differences between the browsers
    • javascript libraries get around the browser incompatibilities
    • javascript engines in the browser aren’t pluggable/upgradable
• ECMAScript — standard with 3 major dialects: javascript, actionscript, jscript
• js engines
  • firefox: spidermonkey
  • chrome: v8 engine
  • IE: JScript 5.8
  • flash/flex: actionscript engine
• adobe collaborating with mozilla
  • donated actionscript virtual machine (AVM2) to the mozilla foundation
  • tamarin will be used for javascript 2
  • same javascript engine as used in flash player
  • javascript is traditionally interpreted
  • V8 and Tamarin do a lot of just-in-time compiling
  • probably be years before this is a standard
• swf is a partially open file format
  • specs are published, but adobe retains ownership
  • everyone can read/write swf files, but spec isn’t open for change
• openlaszlo
  • because swf format is open, openlaszlo is written in lzx but generates a swf
• flex is an sdk
  • big switch from the animation history of flash–flex is a ‘business toolkit’
  • flash player is free but not open source
  • adobe dabbling with open source–tamarin, open source sdk
  • flex builder isn’t even free as in beer
    • eclipse plugin
    • also plugin for intellij
• here’s what we know so far
  • jvm (jre) == flash player
  • class (JAR) == swf
  • jdk == flex sdk

Deeper Dive Into Flex

• two key technologies: mxml and actionscript
• mxml–tag-based like html
  • declarative, nested hierarchy of widgets
  • mxml is the html/css analog in this environment
• actionscript
  • ecmascript dialect
    • if you know JS do you know AS? yes and no
  • first official version of AS was in Flash Player 5
  • huge maturation with AS 2, even more with AS 3
    • AS has been sliding more and more towards Java in terms of strong typing, inheritance, packages, etc.

Flex Development

• need flex sdk
• similar manual install process as with groovy and grails
  • set up flex home directory as an environment variable, add flex bin to path
  • mxmlc compiles mxml/AS code into swf
• can buy Flash Builder, but isn’t required for development
  • development experience isn’t nearly as good without Flash Builder
• IntelliJ has Flex capabilities as well (only in pro version)
• Google provides SWCs to incorporate google maps into flex appss

Grails Plugins

• four plugins
• GraniteDS Flex Plugin–seems to be most mature and well documented
  • includes GraniteDS for data services
  • originally required JPA, not GORM
  • GORM support now in the plugin (experimental)
  • install the plugin, annotate the services and controllers
  • can then generate AS3 domain classes as well as the flex app itself