Exclusive Review: Macromedia brings Flash to the enterprise

After a decade of web-style development, I’m sold on the idea of using markup languages to describe the layouts of user interfaces and to coordinate the event-driven code that interconnects widgets and binds them to data. The original expression of that model was HTML and JavaScript, but variations have flourished.

Mozilla-based applications have been using XUL (XML User Interface Language) for years. The Laszlo Presentation Server uses a description language called LZX. Now Microsoft has previewed XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) for Longhorn.

Now comes MXML (Macromedia Flex Markup Language), the latest development in Macromedia’s ongoing quest to reposition the near-ubiquitous Flash player as a general-purpose presentation engine for rich Internet applications.

As with the Laszlo product we reviewed last fall, Macromedia’s Flex is a Java-based and XML-driven presentation server. You can deploy it to an existing J2EE server on Windows, Linux, or Solaris, or use the included JRun server. Nothing about Flex inherently requires a J2EE environment, however, and Macromedia is working on an implementation for .Net, too. But for the time being, it only supports Java app servers.

For this review, I used Windows Server 2003 and JRun. The Flex server compiles an MXML file that describes an application into an SWF (Shockwave Flash) file that renders in a Flash player. Because the newest player (Version 7) is required, I could only test Flex applications in Windows and Mac OS X browsers, but not in a Linux browser. The Linux version of the player just entered beta, however, and Macromedia expects to release it shortly after Flex debuts. That is, of course, a crucial part of Macromedia’s strategy to make Flash the kind of universal client that Java aimed — but has so far failed — to become.

The Flex strategy first began to crystallize two years ago when Macromedia rolled out the Flash 6 player, Flash MX development tools, and ColdFusion MX server. The possibilities were exciting, and the back-end environment was comfortably based on Java and Web services. But the client-side discipline was alien to the corporate programmer.

One obstacle was the ActionScript 1.0 language, which lacked the strong typing and formal class model that a Java programmer would expect. The solution to this problem arrived last fall when Flash MX 2004 introduced Flash Player 7 and support for ActionScript 2.0. Yet the Flash IDE was still built around the concept of making a movie, not coding an application. Flex presents a development model that will make immediate sense to an enterprise developer.

Look and Feel

With XML markup at its core, Flex is inherently IDE-friendly, and Macromedia has two IDE initiatives underway. One, code-named Brady, builds on Dreamweaver MX. The other, code-named Partridge, leverages Eclipse. But I’m a firm believer in the less-is-more principle, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been able to use Flex productively with no fancier tool than my trusty Emacs text editor. The widgets defined in the MXML tag language — panels, tree controls, data grids, and form elements — combine easily and predictably, using a simple and clean syntax.