After several years of developing Flex applications for large and small enterprises, we’ve noticed a typical mistake: people don’t allocate enough time to decide on the application architecture. They believe that picking one of the MVC frameworks is all they need. When the resulting application (SWF file) turns into a 3-5MB monster, they start to realize that it’s time to cut it into pieces to make it more responsive and manageable. This means missed deadlines and requirements for additional financing to complete the project.

This one-day hands-on master class will allow you to learn how to modularize your application using Flex libraries, modules and sub-applications. Bring your own laptop and we’ll show you step by step how to dissect an initial sample monolithic application into smaller loadable parts.

After attending this Master Class you’ll be able to answer the following questions:

What’s the connection between the library linkage and your enterprise application performance?
How to monitor and fine tune what gets downloaded over the wire to your users?
What to considerwhile selecting the linage type of Flex libraries ?
When to use libraries and when to use modules?
How to arrange for a smarter RSL downloads?
How to establish communications between the modules?
What’s the difference between modules and sub-applications?
How to work with Application domains?
How to create portals using modules and sub-applications?

Attending this one day workshop will help enterprise and application architects to understand how to properly design real-world RIA with Adobe Flex, which translate into substantial savings of development cost. We'll keep this workshop small so everybody gets a chance to be heard.

Class Outline

-Peeking inside the Application and Library SWF’s
-Three library linkage types: External, RSL, Merge-in
-Self-initialized libraries for truly dynamic RSL loading
-More efficient RSL loading
-How to organize builds of modularized applications in Flex teams
-How to organize isolated module testing while developing Flex portals
-Flex and Flash loaders-ModuleLoader vs. ModuleManager

-Using new Flex 4 StyleManager
-Dynamic styles
-Intra-module communication in a loosely-coupled way
-A Tree of the application domains
-Best practices when working with Modules
-Working with sub-applications
-Loading applications into same/different security sandboxes and domains

Each student must bring his/her own laptop with pre-installed Flash Builder IDE.

Each of the above topics is illustrated by a sample application that the students will install and run on their own notebook computers. During the course of the day, the students will redesign a sample application using various modularization techniques.

Suggested textbook:  “Enterprise Development with Flex” co-authored by the instructors of this Master Class.

Instructor:

Yakov Fain is Managing Director at Farata Systems, a US-based company that provides consulting services in the field of development of enterprise Rich Internet applications. He authored several technical books, and dozens of articles on software development. Recently he co-authored the books  "Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters" and "Enterprise Development with Flex". Sun Microsystems has nominated and awarded Mr. Fain with the title of Java Champion, which was presented to only a hundred people in the world. He leads the Princeton Java Users Group. Yakov is Certified Adobe Flex Instructor.

FAQ

What’s the size of the class?
Under 15 people

Is this a hands-on class?
No. It’s not possible to cover all these topics during two days in a hands-on set up. It’s a mix of lectures, live demos and code reviews

Do you provide any materials for the attendees?
Yes, each attendee receives the hard and soft copy of all slides. We also provide the source code of all sample applications used during this workshop. As an additional bonus, each student will receive a book "Enterprise Development with Flex" written by Yakov Fain, Victor Rasputnis and Anatole Tartakovsky. This book has been published in 2010 by O'Reilly as a part of the series Adobe Developer Library.

What are the prerequisites for attending this seminar?
This is an advanced class and having a hands-on experience with Flex  is a must.

Do you teach this seminar privately on-site?
Yes, we teach this seminar world-wide. Please send an email to yfain at faratasystems.com if you'd like to make arrangements.