Adobe Flex and AIR Boot Camp
Adobe Flex and the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) are growing faster than most other technologies in the Web 2.0 realm. Both Flex and AIR can make use of existing technologies like Ajax, PHP, Java, and Ruby on Rails to build really advanced RIAs in very little time and effort.
This session takes developers from a “Hello World” project through eight other hands-on builds ending with a standalone desktop AIR application displaying a graph of a two-dimensional array of data accessed via web services. While this sounds optimistic for three hours, it demonstrates the ease of which Flex and AIR can allow developers to become productive.
Note that while these technologies are from Adobe Systems, programmers do not need to purchase any products to use them on an ongoing basis. Free compilers and tools are available and the runtime components (such as Flash Player) are also free. The class will spend about 30% in instruction mode and the balance in hands-on development. The free tools may be downloaded from http://labs.adobe.com.
comments
While a familiarity with XML and Flash would be good, it is not necessary. I have taught similar courses on this subject before and people with no experience have built 10 projects from scratch.
From a technical perspective, you will need to download and install the Flex Builder. A trial version is available from the URL above. You should also download and install the AIR runtime from Adobe labs.
Please come and learn how to program in Flex!!!!
Thanks for the answer. Are there computers availables or do I need to come with my laptop and install on it? Is this possible on a Linux OS? Thanks
Seems like you need to bring your own laptop. Flex Builder is an extension of Eclipse, so you should be able to run it on Linux no problem. As it's written in java, however... the key words are "should be" ;)
I've trialed Flex Builder and found it interfered with my existing installation of Eclipse. I prefer the simple and free way which is using flex2ant [ http://flex2ant.org/ ]
I'm looking forward to learning about AIR. ie: what's the difference between AIR and Flash Player?
I am not aware that the event is supplying any computers. I will be making a download available in advance and at the minimum, you should have the AIR runtime and Flex Builder 3 or later on your system. The download will be made available on my blog (http://technoracle.blogspot.com) and I woudl ask if you can link to it and promote the message to others.
Cheers
Duane
Linux - I asked James Ward as he runs FB on Linux and has co-taught similar courses with me and he said it should be fine.
Thanks Shirley!
BTW - I made a long blog post today about my life experience of enterprise software architecture over the last ten years with lessons learned.
http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2008/10/forensic-architecture-and-other-lessons.html
This took a while to learn from life.
Duane
note to correct my previous post:
found this: http://www.dougboude.com/blog/1/2006/08/Removing-FlexBuilder-from-Eclipse.cfm
... and went and installed the trial version of flex builder 3 with a bit more confidence that it wouldn't mess with my existing eclipse install. Now I'm excited! can't wait for the boot camp!
and as for AIR... seems like an extension of Flash Player that has access to the windows registry? dunno.
This session has already exceeded the educational content of the entire expo last year. My faith in this conference has been restored.
This session is the best single session I have ever attended. Duane and Peter got me programming in less than an hour. I highly recommend this for everyone.
What is the basic knowledge needed for this session?