Lab 5 : Approval Client

I'm just about finished with my approval client, the things I need to do are:

A) figure out how to get a count of the number of items in the queue (my library doesn't support that function)
B) Make my SOAP calls to the WHOIS service (is there a specific service we're supposed to be using for this?)

I've got my prototype running here. I'm using Flex for the front end, with data provided by a PHP backend. My plug for Flex follows...

Based on anecdotal evidence (i.e., conversations I've had) I think that Adobe Flex is one of the most misconstrued technologies in our department. I just wanted to take a few lines and address some of the misconceptions I've heard as I've discussed Flex with fellow students.

Things you've probably heard about Adobe Flex:
1. It's proprietary.
2. It's uses Flash.
3. It costs hundreds of dollars for the compiler/IDE.
4. Flex data services costs several thousand dollars per processor to deploy.

While there is some truth to all the statements above, but bottom line in regards to cost is this: Flex is free.

You can download the free SDK (incidentally, all you need to compile and deploy Flex applications) here

If you'd like an IDE, go here to download a free academically licensed version of Flex Builder 2, with Charting. You'll need to provide some identification.

Follow links here to download Flex Data Services Express (licensed free of charge on up to 1 processor). I should mention that I've used data in all the Flex applications I've developed, and I have yet to try Flex Data Services. There is a wide variety of options for getting data to your application. I've used Java web services, PHP pages returning XML, AMF (Actionscript's serialized data format) streams, and a couple others.

And yes, it does run in a Flash player (the resemblance to Flash ends there) but that does have its advantages. As long as your platform has a Flash player, your application will look and function exactly the same on Linux, a Mac, a Windows PC, or whatever. And as far as RIA's go, that's saying something.

All things accounted for, it's cheaper to develop in Flex than it is to develop in AJAX. And the applications look better consistently across platforms. So if the "cost and Flash" are the only things holding you back from checking it out, you really ought to look into it.