Wheres the Flex on rails?
So I have been moving onto Ruby on Rails (i know this blog is tettering in the bronk of becoming a dreded "web 2.0" chat site), and I really love it.
The basis of Ruby on Rails, is that it is a programing lanuage (Ruby made by some asian folk) that found some fame when it got some Rails. Rails being a framework which was wrapped around it to very simply hook it all up automajically to the database. It rellys heavily on the MVC OOP patern. Model, View and Controller. Check out an explanation on the WIKI. So I have been using MVC in flash apps and it works well. Its great in fact. Nicely separated, easily extendable blah blah blah.
The great thing is, if im dealing with alot of something, say users, in the databas, literally 15 lines of code and the framework knows I will probably want to Add, Edit and Delete entries. COOL, it takes care of it all for you. Super quick and extendable.
This is something I think the future Flex 2.0 might have missed the mark a little on. Maybe because Flex really only cares about the Data it has to work with and has no real connection/control over a database. It requires some coding either in flex or the server side (or both) to add all this add edit and delete functionality. Dont get me wrong I love the new Flex framework and the speed of the new Virtual machine, but maybe the Flex framework was a little to focused on creating a winformsish environment rather than stepping back and saying we have the flash ide, lets build a data manipulation framework, and let the designers style the standard controls, with a really extended css lanuage.
So I am now wondering where are Flex’s rails? Maybe this could be some future AMFPHP/Coldfusion development, but as I mentioned earlier Flex is a client side appliccation and has no real control over the database.
Anyways food for thought, and at 3:42am there aint much thought left in this wee head.
Hi Campbell,
you are right indeed with the missing server side database connectivity layer in Flex Builder.
It seems like Flex is designed for teams of multiple developers, some working with the server side and some with the client side of an application, and that’s why flex knows how to connect to existing web services or DAO objects, but can’t create some for you.
David Mendels answered a similar question here:
http://www.flashant.org/index.php?p=562&c=1#comments
Hope this helps,
Alexandru
I agreee but I think it could be built in Ruby and not PHP or CF and use the power of Rails. I’m just getting into Ruby myself but it seems that there is plenty of room with the language to make this happen. Maybe by extending the Acive Record and modifying scripts to write the AS or MXML. Let me know if you get anything started in this direction I’d love to contribute.
Jesus effing christ…you people with your RoR fanboi web2.0 bandwagon fad. this just legitimizes the theory of people like yourself who praise anything new that comes out on the web as being, “the next big thing”
ITS. A. FAD.
I still haven’t tried RoR. It’s obviously pretty decent or there wouldn’t be so much hype about it. Fad or not, it’ll being staying in programmers’ toolboxes for quite a while, I’m sure.
Flex on Rails would be sweet, although I think you’re right, it would be more fitting for CF or AMFPHP to handle it. There are a couple of ColdFusion projects that I think are trying to do just that. ARF and ColdFusion on Rails if I remember correctly.
Keep up the Web 2.0 stuff. Josh, don’t be a hater. It’s not a fad. Sure it’s a buzzword, but you have to admit that the web is much better since the buzzword was first coined.
Dude,
I think you are missing the point big time. Flex is a presentation tier framework. Not a full stack like RoR.
Depending on your setup you could use Flex Data Services. This pulls data from your business tier like nothing else. Pushing back the changes is as easie (if you have the right framework, ie. hibernate or some messaging system).
For the folks who, like me, like to get real: combine the power of RoR AND Flex.
I use ruby on rails for the excellent simple active record stuff. And using builder templates i whip up xml that i let Flex consume. Posting data back to a ruby url from the flex app and whoof there it goes.
It gets even better with the Flex Ajax Bridge, which allows me to use RoR ajax (check out the awesome RJS features) and Flex on the same page. This simply is uncomparable to anything out there (in terms of easyness and productivity).
And of course (shameless plug) the real Rails for Flex is Cairngorm which brings the same lightweight dessign patterns to Flex that are used in RoR.
So don’t forget:
RoR => full web app stack with html (ajax) front end.
Flex => Presentation tier for any web app tier (like RoR)
Flex Data Services => middle tier data handling on steroids
Welcome to what I’ve labelled “Flex on Fusion” (FoF).
Part of the beta 2 public release is a set of Eclipse plug-ins that allow you to generate data access objects in AS3 and CFML based on a database table. This, in my mind, is a start of the FoF equivalent of RoR’s ActiveRecord. There are differences of course (which is actually good since Flex solves very different problems than Ruby.)
Plug-ins that generate even more code… including an complete app generator… are coming. RoR developers shouldn’t be disappointed. Watch out RoR, FoF is on the way!
BTW, the ColdFusion equivalent of Rails is called “ColdFusion on Wheels”. The project site is at http://www.cfwheels.com/. It’s basically a port of the core Rails framework functionality in ColdFusion. Not complete yet, but the latest version (0.31) covers most of the basics.
Will be interesting to see how that project progresses and whether the functionality really makes sense for ColdFusion development. Rails was written to take advantage of the strengths of Ruby, and I’m not sure how well that translates over to CFML since the languages have different strengths. We will see.
Hey people,
Ilya, nope I get just that. Really I do and I think I even state it in the post. Just saying where is it. Like you say ROR and Flex is a really nice combination. Why not have a tighter intergration? all pipe dreams bro all pipe dreams
Ryan, cheers for the backup bro
Josh, Hey man hows thing, Yeah honestly I wouldnt consider making an Uber hard out web app like what I used to make at RightHemisphere, in Rails. As you say its another tool, or the feather in me cap. I like it anyways, Im a lazy programmer by nature and dont want to have to over code and introduce to many potential bugs.
Josh who didnt even leave a link, bro take a chill pill, Im the same evangilistick supporter of flash and flex, you gonna drill me on that too? just cause its new it aint bad,
Paul, Yeah bro you been researching this area? Hans sounds like hes pretty far down the road, only problem I have never tried CFML…..might be time to try something else new
I’m obviously biased towards a CF-backend solution with Flex 2, but I think you’ll definitely want to check out CF Mystic Beta 3 + Flex 2 Beta 3..
We’re hard at work and hope to preview some hyper-rapid productivity, secure, OO, MVC, async, intelligent RIA, push, RDMS-based app all-tier codegen, auto-deploy-and-run development with CF + Flex 2.
Quite a few of us on the CF team have build DB apps in many paradigms, tiers, environments, tools, with various frameworks, methodologies, etc over the years and have come to realize we hate coding mundane DB app detail stuff that follows design patterns and is so obvious. We think developers want to spend more time solving business problems and looking like heroes, and less time doing the basic code patterns for the most common data-bearing DB apps.
Again, a preview is hopefully coming in CF Mystic Beta 3 + Flex 2 Beta 3.
Damon
Sure RoR might be a fad but of all I’ve seen it’s a fast new way to produce modern websites. PHP replaced Perl for me and I plan on Ruby doing the same and giving me more options on the server side.
I’ve done some research. I made a little Flex 1.5 app with PHP passing XML back and forth and would be using RoR to do the same with Flex 2. I don’t think I’ll be using all that RoR has to offer as I don’t need the view layer. Which is where RJS a to RAS would be cool. Talk about a Pipedream.
flexonrails
I wish I had the time to try it out.