Learning Flex as a Flash guy

[illustratedlife]

I'm a Flash designer/developer. I build web apps for a living in Flash, with object-oriented AS3. I can build really neat things quickly in Flash and know it well.

I know Flex is really popular right now. I don't know how much of that is because it's a buzzword or that it's easier for real programmers to grasp than Flash, and how much of it is because it is worth knowing above and beyond Flash.

I'm confident that I could take a Flex-based job and pick it up pretty quickly, but I'd like to learn a bit more about it. Here's what I know so far:

1) You can't use anything in the fl package. There's an mx package that's supposed to be pretty useful, but I don't really know the details. (I imagine you can add both mx and fl to your classpath and then use your favorite parts of both).

2) You can use MXML to scaffold out the display list in an easier way than pure AS3. I've seen MXML, but never written my own.

3) Before CS4, tools designed for Flex could only compile in Flex, but now you can also use them in Flash projects.

What are good resources for someone who's already an expert with ActionScript and the Flash platform to learn more about Flex? I'm reading through the Flex LiveDocs right now. If there's anything else I should be reading, please let me know.

Thanks!

[widged]

Flex Examples, a huge collection of example code showing of controls and containers

Flex Cookbook, a collection of solutions to practical problems

Flex 3 Component Explorer and Flex Style Explorer, other opportunities to learn by example

Also the mailing list, FlexCoder

[illustratedlife]

Thanks. I'll have to peek at these.

If you're already strong with Flash, is Flex worth messing with?

[widged]

It depends the type of application you want to develop.

Flex is great for any application that includes controls of the type found in desktop software (buttons, textfields, calendar popups, etc.).

It is a lot faster to reuse built-in components than write your own. Another strength of Flex is the existence of laying out logic in containers. If you want a nice photo gallery with the number of images in a row being dependent of the width of the window, all is done for you. Another plus is the ease with which you can connect to webservices and process remote data (especially xml ones). Ah yeah, and the ability to style your interface.

If the bulk of your work is complex animations and you master Flash, then learning Flex is not likely to boost your productivity or your job prospects by much.

On whether Flex should be learned on top of Flash, I am not the best person to ask. I came to learn Actionscript only because I was interested in Flex .

[illustratedlife]

Thanks.

I just got an iPhone, and I'm researching that now. I get the feeling if you're a designer or you're building something new, Flash/Javascript is a good way to go. Flex/Cocoa seem to be more for the 'follow our style guide, but make it work quickly' set.

[cancerinform]

Adobe has been pushing Flex all the time, but the reality is that it is not as popular as they thought it to be. The advantage of Flex is that if you know it you save a lot of coding as widget pointed out. I think to know how to create applications with Flex - you don't have to be a guru - is worthwhile. You can put it on your portfolio and that always helps.

[widged]

I just got an iPhone, and I'm researching that now.

Well, it looks like Flash is on Android. Not on the iPhone yet though. And I would think this is FlashLite (AS2, VM1) rather than Flex (AS3, VM2).