Essential Virtues Of Being A Good Flex Developer

By Author: Harry Barter
Total Articles: 21
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Flex development is a very alluring branch when it comes to web application development. Flex is based on the mighty Flash platform and helps in building rich Internet applications in quick time. For a Flex developer it is essential to learn the technology comprehensively to utilize its potential optimally. Other than the Flex technology there are other things to keep in mind as well for all the Flex developers. These are as follows:

1. Object Oriented Programming Skills
Flex is a client-side programming technology and is based on a fully object-oriented language. Object-oriented programming methodologies is a prerequisite for any Flex developer as he would be extensively using the concepts like classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance, composition, polymorphism, and so on. The concepts may be tough but are really necessary in building a fully functional and reusable Flex component. Foe Flex developers it is not necessary to learn the object oriented programming anew if they have had some experience in programming languages like C#, Java, Ruby, and other similar object oriented programming languages.

2. ...
... ActionScript / MXML
When we talk about a client-server application such as a rich Internet application built using the Flex technology, we refer to an application that runs on the client browser but synchronizes data dynamically with the server database. Flex is the client-side technology and is based on two things- a markup language, and a programming language. The markup language is responsible for the designing of the RIA, while the actual intelligence is implemented through the programming language. A Flex developer uses MXML in collaboration with ActionScript for creating fully functional Flex applications. MXML is tag-based declarative language written in XML. Each MXML tag is mapped directly to a corresponding ActionScript class. MXML is primarily used by Flex developers to lay out the UI, whereas, ActionScript is used for business logic.

Flex developers use the hundreds of ActionScript classes and interfaces included in the Flex Framework and the Flex SDK for Flex development. The skill of a Flex developer is known by his proficiency in MXML and ActionScript programming.

3. Debugging
Debugging is the testing of the application or an individual component module and finding and removing any errors from the system. Debugging optimizes the code to be feature rich and fully functional. A Flex developer should readily debug his applications each time and expertly too, as a large portion of any Flex developer's time is spent debugging. Obviously, debugging is required to track down the root cause of bugs. However, debugging is also a great way to learn a new code base. Fortunately, there are many debugging tools available for Flex development to assist you in debugging such as Flash Builder 4 Debugger, De MonsterDebugger, Kap Inspect, and so on. Learning these tools helps the Flex developers in cutting down the time investments in debugging.

4. Event-driven programming
Learning the object oriented programming techniques alone cannot make you a good Flex developer. You need to go further in knowing what event-driven programming is. In event-driven programming, such as Flex development, every action is the result of an asynchronous event.

As a Flex developer, you must know how to respond to events and how to create and dispatch events. To accomplish this, a solid understanding of Flex's event architecture is required including familiarity with the following concepts:

Built-in events (Flash Player or Flex Framework events)
Custom events (Events created by the developer that extend the Event class or one of its subclasses)
Event dispatchers, event broadcasters (See EventDispatcher class and its dispatchEvent method)
Event listeners, event handlers (See EventDispatcher class and its addEventListener & removeEventListener methods)
Event Flow (capture, target & bubbling phases; target vs. currentTarget)
Event objects, event types (See Event class and subclasses)
Event default behavior (See Event class and subclasses and its preventDefault method)

5. Data binding
Data Binding is not as complicated as the other prerequisites of a good Flex developer. In fact it is really simple as the value of one property is binded with the value of another property using curly bracket notation. As the value of the source property changes, so does the value of the destination property. Albeit, there may arise performance implications in case of indiscriminate data binding. A solid understanding of data binding helps the Flex developers in determining when it is appropriate and when it is not during Flex development.

6. Item renderers
One characteristic of a well-designed Flex application is the presentation of data in a visually-compelling manner. Flex provides a number of list-based controls (DataGrid, List, TileList, HorizontalList, etc) responsible for the presentation of data. However, only with the help of an item renderer can a list-based control customize the display of the data. Flex developers use these item renderers extensively hence getting familiar to them helps them uninhibitedly.

7. Accessing remote data
Again, Flex is a client-server interaction technology that transmits data in between the two. To synchronize data with a remote database (the server) a Flex developer needs to implement data retrieval services like HTTPService, WebService and RemoteObject.

8. Styling / Skinning
Now we get down to the user end of the RIA - the User Interface (UI). In order to get a good response from the user the Flex developer needs to create state-of-the-art UI designs and skins. The UI along with the overall look and feel of the RIA should be customized by the Flex developers in order to increase user experience through CSS styling and/or graphical or programmatic skins.

9. At least one Flex architecture framework
Flex may be a single technology but the underlying architecture frameworks differ for various uses and implementations. Most Flex architecture frameworks enforce a separation of concerns by implementing an MVC (model-view-controller) application design. In addition, many of these same frameworks dictate how your code should be organized and packaged within your Flex project. Flex developers benefit in many ways from the experience of using at least one of them. Simply witnessing the techniques (good or bad) employed by a framework to solve complex architectural issues contributes to your growth as a Flex developer / architect.

10. Component lifecycle & the display list
The component lifecycle and the display list don't come into picture until the Flex developer is into custom component Flex development. Hence this is put at the last as the Flex developer can live without this prerequisite and depend upon the built-in and already available Flex components for custom Flex development.