James Ward

assertTrue("Test DSLs" == "Legacy")

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over decades in programming I’ve had a few moments where I make big paradigm shifts, finding it very hard to go back. One of these moments was with Functional Programming and my latest is the move from Test Assertion DSLs to just using assertTrue with boolean-only tests.

Let’s look at some examples of Test Assertion DSLs. Suppose we have a string and we want to assert it starts with a letter and ends with a letter.

The Seven Artifacts of Developer Advocacy Projects

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past 16 years, mostly as a Developer Advocate, I’ve developed a framework to help developers learn and get excited about something new. I believe generating excitement is the primary goal of advocacy.

Each developer advocacy project ideally produces seven artifacts:

Code Samples
A Blog Post
A Presentation and/or Video
A Hands-On Workshop
Broad Social Media Reach
Product Feedback
Enriched Community, Partner, or Customer Relationships

I’ve found that doing all seven produces the greatest impact. The amount of effort decreases with each subsequent item while the effect grows.

The Modern Java Platform - 2021 Edition

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Many developers were burned by the overly complex world of Java back in the early 2000s. The Gang of Four patterns and middleware / J2EE / Java EE led to ridiculous levels of alleged decoupling as is evident in this sequence diagram from an open source J2EE ecommerce system I worked on in 2002:

Back in 2014 I wrote about how things had changed: Java Doesn’t Suck – You’re Just Using it Wrong. But six years have passed since I wrote that and things have continued to improve, making the Java platform a fantastic option when building microservices, data pipelines, web apps, mobile apps, and more. Let’s walk through some of the “modern” (as of 2021) aspects to the Java platform.

Running One-Off/Admin Jobs for Cloud Run Services

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by Google Cloud.

Cloud Run hosts services that handle HTTP requests but sometimes you need a way to run one-off / admin jobs with the same settings and container image. At this time the managed Cloud Run service doesn’t provide a way to run those kinds of processes and running them through HTTP handlers can result in short timeouts (5 minutes by default, max 60 minutes), the possibility to accidentally run them more than once, and potential security issues. Whether you need this for schema migrations, management tasks, or something else, I’ve made it easy for you. Click to launch a tool in Cloud Shell that will walk you through it:

Want to see more about how it works? Watch this short demo:

Container-based Serverless Scheduled Jobs on Google Compute Engine

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Most of my compute workloads today are on Cloud Run, a serverless for containers platform. But some workloads like scheduled jobs don’t fit the service-oriented model of Cloud Run. There are many places I can run those workloads but I’d like to keep the serverless “pay for what you use” model and still use containers as my packaging format. I could use Kubernetes for these and use Cloud Run for Anthos to run everything in one place but I wanted something more bare-bones. I created a way to hook up Cloud Scheduler so that it starts scheduled jobs from containers on Google Compute Engine. Here is a video walkthrough for how to set it up and use it:

GraalVM Native Image Tips & Tricks

Thu, 07 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Elastic infrastructure that scales up & down based on demand is not just a “serverless” fad but an operational model which reduces cost and waste. Yet there is a little devil lurking under the covers… When an application / microservice needs to spin up based on demand there can be some lag as the application needs to be downloaded to the node, potentially a VM needs to be started, the application itself needs to be started, and potentially local caches need to be hydrated. In traditional enterprise systems this “cold start” process can realistically take tens of minutes. But it’s near impossible to have demand-based scaling when things take that long to start.

GraalVM is a Java Virtual Machine implementation that addresses parts of the “cold start” problem by doing Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation on JVM-based applications. GraalVM can create a “native image” of your application so that it no longer needs to run inside a JVM. This can reduce startup time and in some cases improve overall performance. The native images can also be much smaller than the usual OS + JVM + all dependency JARs. For example, a recent application I was working on went from a pretty trim 208MB docker image (OS + JVM + deps + app) that started in 2 seconds, down to 14MB and a 0.5s startup time. Sounds amazing! But there are some caveats, tips, and tricks I’d like to share with you.

When you hear ‘Monad’, think ‘Chainable’

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 19:09:05 +0000

There comes a point in every Functional Programmer’s life where they feel the curse of the Monad has lifted and they must now explain Monads to their friends who just don’t get it. What follows is probably wrong and confusing, cause there is no escaping the curse. But here goes…

Suppose you have a system property that contains the name of another system property, like:

KEYNAME=FOO

And you want the value of FOO, like:

Thank You for 12 Years in Developer Evangelism

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 18:27:11 +0000

Even though it was 12 years ago, I vividly remember sitting in a musty conference room with big-name analysts from Gartner. My palms were sweaty and I was almost too terrified to speak. Macromedia had brought me into this meeting to be the customer voice for their new programming platform, Flex. I was an early adopter building a customer portal using this new technology. But I was a coder—not someone who talks publicly. Somehow the Macromedia folks thought I did a good job, and so my life took an interesting turn as I moved from engineering to evangelism.

Connecting to the Salesforce REST APIs with Spring Boot and Java

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:37:19 +0000

Broadly speaking there are two types of integrations with Salesforce, either a system-to-system integration or a user interface integration. One of the primary ways to do these integrations is by using the Salesforce REST API. When using the Salesforce REST API you need to obtain an access token that identifies who is making the requests. OAuth 2 provides an HTTP interface to obtain a Salesforce access token.

When using the Salesforce OAuth 2 API there are three options for obtaining an access token:

Quick & Easy ETL from Salesforce to MySQL with Workflow & Heroku

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 18:59:39 +0000

While sometimes unfortunate it is often necessary to have data silos that share data. The Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) pattern has been around for a long time to address this need and there are tons of solutions out there. If you just need a quick and easy way to copy new & updated records in Salesforce to an external data source, a simple Heroku app and Salesforce Workflow might be the quickest and easiest solution. I’ve put together a sample Node.js application for this: https://github.com/jamesward/salesforce-etl-mysql

Add NPM Packages to Salesforce with a Few Clicks

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:41:20 +0000

I’ve built a little web-based tool called ForceNPM that makes it super easy to add NPM packages to Salesforce. Check it out:

Give ForceNPM a try!

The code is on GitHub so if you’d like to deploy this on your own Heroku app or other infrastructure, you can do that. Let me know how it goes!

Scalable Continuous Delivery Pipelines

Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:18:12 +0000

Back when I first started building web apps we’d just “do it in production” by vi’ing Perl & PHP files on the server. This was fine because the risks and expectations were low. No big deal if I broke the app for a few hours. Good thing I made an app.php-bak copy!

As software became more critical to businesses, the risks of making changes to production systems increased. To cope with these risks we slowed down delivery through processes. Today many enterprises are so bogged down by risk aversion that they may only deploy to production once a year or less. The rate of change in businesses and software continues to increase and the expectations are even higher. Downtime is not an option but that change also needs to go out now!

Reactive Web Request Batching with Scala and Play Framework

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:00:26 +0000

At first glance it seems silly to do batching in the reactive world. When I first started with reactive programming I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about things like resource starvation. After all, the reactive magic bullet was *magical*! But my magic bullet fizzled when it hit downstream resource constraints causing me to need batching.

With a reactive web client library like Play Framework’s, I can easily spin up tens of thousands of web requests, in parallel, using very little resources. But what if that saturates the server I’m making requests to? In an ideal world I could get backpressure but most web endpoints don’t provide a way to do that. So we just have to be nicer to the server and batch the requests. (Sidenote: How do you know how nice you should be to the service, e.g. batch size?)

Machine Learning on Heroku with PredictionIO

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:42:40 +0000

Last week at the TrailheaDX Salesforce Dev Conference we launched the DreamHouse sample application to showcase the Salesforce App Cloud and numerous possible integrations. I built an integration with the open source PredictionIO Machine Learning framework. The use case for ML in DreamHouse is a real estate recommendation engine that learns based on users with similar favorites. Check out a demo and get the source.

For the DreamHouse PredictionIO integration to work I needed to get the PredictionIO service running on Heroku. Since it is a Scala app everything worked great! Here are the steps to get PredictionIO up and running on Heroku.

Combining Reactive Streams, Heroku Kafka, and Play Framework

Wed, 25 May 2016 16:14:38 +0000

Heroku recently announced early access to the new Heroku Kafka service and while I’ve heard great things about Apache Kafka I hadn’t played with it because I’m too lazy to set that kind of stuff up on my own. Now that I can setup a Kafka cluster just by provisioning a Heroku Addon I figured it was time to give it a try.

If you aren’t familiar with Kafka it is kinda a next generation messaging system. It uses pub-sub, scales horizontally, and has built-in message durability and delivery guarantees. Originally Kafka was built at LinkedIn but is now being used by pretty much every progressive enterprise that needs to move massive amounts of data through transformation pipelines.

Building a Mock HVAC for Smart Thermostat Demos

Tue, 17 May 2016 17:21:15 +0000

Update: I’ve added instructions for a cooling system at the bottom of this post.

Recently I needed to create a mock HVAC system so that I could have a portable smart thermostat for various demos. I searched around but couldn’t find any such thing. So with some sleuthing and the help of my friend Bruce Eckel I was able to build a simple system that powers a smart thermostat and simulates a heating system. This post will document how to do this in case anyone else ever needs such a thing.

The 6 Minute Cloud/Local Dev Roundtrip with Spring Boot

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 17:03:32 +0000

Great developer experiences allow you go from nothing to something amazing in under ten minutes. So I’m always trying to see how much I can minimize getting started experiences. My latest attempt is to deploy a Spring Boot app on Heroku, download the source to a developer’s machine, setup & run the app locally, make & test changes, and then redeploy those changes — all in under ten minutes (assuming a fast internet connection). Here is that experience in about six minutes:

Pulling Go Code Colorado Data into Salesforce

Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:50:30 +0000

This weekend I’m at the Go Code Colorado Challenge Weekend event in Durango. The purpose of Go Code Colorado 2016 is for teams to build something useful for businesses using one or more of the Colorado Public Datasets. Some teams are using Salesforce for the back-office / business process side of the app they are building. So I decided to see if I could pull a Colorado Public Dataset into Salesforce. Turns out it’s super easy! Just follow these steps:

Quick Force Java – Getting Started with Salesforce REST in Java

Tue, 26 Jan 2016 17:05:06 +0000

Recently I blogged about a toolchain that quickly gets you going with the Salesforce REST APIs. I believe developers should be able to get started with new technologies without having to install tons of stuff and struggle for days. That blog used Quick Force Node for those who want to use JavaScript / Node.js. I’ve had a number of requests for a Java version of this toolchain so I created Quick Force Java.

Salesforce REST APIs – From Zero to Cloud to Local Dev in Minutes

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 16:50:52 +0000

When getting acquainted with new technologies I believe that users shouldn’t have to spend more than 15 minutes getting something simple up and running. I wanted to apply this idea to building an app on the Salesforce REST APIs so I built Quick Force (Node). In about 12 minutes you can deploy a Node.js app on Heroku that uses the Salesforce REST APIs, setup OAuth, then pull the app down to your local machine, make and test changes, and then redeploy those changes. Check out a video walkthrough:

Winter Tech Forum 2016 – My Favorite Developer Conference!

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 23:54:17 +0000

I’ve been to a TON of developer conferences and by a landslide my favorite is the Winter Tech Forum (which used to be the Java Posse Roundup). Here is why… Learning for me is experiential.

Typical eyes-forward conferences are like being a passenger on a sail boat. I can watch what is happening but I could definitely not become the captain based on my experience as a passenger. This is what makes WTF different; every attendee is a captain (or maybe a skipper if you are new). The whole conference is the experiences that the attendees want to have. Sometimes that means we write code together, explore new technologies, or discuss ideas. Those experiences have made a significant impact on my technical skills. We also eat together and play together which has helped me build some amazing relationships.

Dreamforce 2015 Video: Tour of Heroku + Salesforce Integration Methods

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:54:44 +0000

This year at Dreamforce I presented a session that walked through a few of the ways to integrate Heroku apps with Salesforce. Here is the session description:

Combining customer-facing apps on Heroku with employee-facing apps on Salesforce enables a whole new generation of connected and intelligent experiences. There are four primary ways to do this integration: Heroku Connect, Canvas, Apex / Process Callouts, and the Salesforce REST APIs. Using code and architectural examples, we’ll walk through these different methods. You will walk away knowing when you should use each and how to use them.

Smoothing the Cloud & Local Roundtrip Developer Experience

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 16:38:06 +0000

Getting started with new technologies is usually a huge pain. Often I stumble around for hours trying to get an app’s toolchain setup correctly. Instructions are usually like:

Things get worse when I lead workshops for hundreds of enterprise developers where many are on Windows machines and not very comfortable with cmd.exe.

Experiencing this pain over-and-over is what led me to create Typesafe Activator as a smooth way to get started with Play Framework, Akka, and Scala. Developers have been thrilled with how easy taking their first step with Activator is but I never finished polishing the experience of the second step: App Deployment.

Comparing Application Deployment: 2005 vs. 2015

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 15:13:58 +0000

Over the past 10 years the ways we build and deliver applications has changed significantly. It seems like much of this change has happened overnight but don’t worry, it is perfectly normal to look up and feel disoriented in the 2015 deployment landscape.

This article compares the deployment in 2005 with “modern” deployment so that all the new terms and techniques will make sense. Forewarning: My background is primarily Java / JVM so I will use that terminology but try to make the ideas polyglot.

Redirecting and Chunking Around Heroku’s 30 Second Request Timeout

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:43:44 +0000

In most cases a web request shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds to return a response so it is for good reason that Heroku has a 30 second request timeout. But there are times when things just take a while. There are different methods for dealing with this. Where possible, the best solution is to offload the job from the web request queue and have a background job queue that can be scaled separately. If the requestor needs the result then it can either poll for it or be pushed the value when the background job is complete. Yet there are some cases where this is overkill. For instance, if a web request takes a while but the user interaction must remain blocked (e.g. a modal spinner) until the request is complete, then setting up background jobs for slow requests can be unnecessary.

Intro to Multi-Sensory Applications

Wed, 27 May 2015 17:43:30 +0000

Recently Christophe Coenraets and I put together some thoughts on what we are calling “Multi-Sensory Applications” - a new way to think about how we build more deeply connected and engaging software. These news types of applications go way beyond typical CRUD apps by composing together a fabric of inputs (senses) and weaving them together through transducers. Here is a short demo of a very simple MSA that I built to show how IoT devices can be connected with back-office business processes:

Refactoring to Microservices

Tue, 26 May 2015 16:56:39 +0000

Right now there is a ton of hype and pushback around Microservices. Most of the current debate revolves around when Microservices make sense with smart people arguing all across the spectrum. As with all architectural topics the right answer is “it depends” so you should never blindly chose Microservices without understanding your goals and how they align with Microservices.

Using the open source WebJars project as an example I’d like to walk through a process of deciding where to use Microservices and then refactor part of the webjars.org app to a Microservice. First a little background on WebJars… WebJars are JavaScript & CSS libraries packaged into Jar files and published on Maven Central for easy consumption by JVM build tools. The webjars.org site is a Play Framework + Scala app that provides search, publishing, and file service for the jsDelivr CDN.

NPM Packages in Maven Central with NPM WebJars

Mon, 18 May 2015 16:36:58 +0000

A few months ago I launched Bower WebJars which provides a way for anyone to deploy Bower packages into Maven Central through WebJars. Since then 539 packages have been deployed! Today I’ve added NPM WebJars which is built on the same foundation as Bower WebJars but for NPM packages.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. If you are curious about the changes to make this happen, check out the pull request.

Auto-Deploy GitHub Repos to Heroku

Fri, 01 May 2015 16:47:22 +0000

My favorite new feature on Heroku is the GitHub Integration which enables auto-deployment of GitHub repos. Whenever a change is made on GitHub the app can be automatically redeployed on Heroku. You can even tell Heroku to wait until the CI tests pass before doing the deployment. I now use this on almost all of my Heroku apps because it allows me to move faster and do less thinking (which I’m fond of).

Reactive Postgres with Play Framework & ScalikeJDBC

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 19:03:19 +0000

Lately I’ve built a few apps that have relational data. Instead of trying to shoehorn that data into a NoSQL model I decided to use the awesome Heroku Postgres service but I didn’t want to lose out on the Reactiveness that most of the NoSQL data stores support. I discovered ScalikeJDBC-Async which uses postgresql-async, a Reactive (non-blocking), JDBC-ish, Postgres driver. With those libraries I was able to keep my data relational and my app Reactive all the way down. Lets walk through how to do it in a Play Framework app. (TL;DR: Jump to the the full source.)

Scaling the WebJars Project with On-Demand Bower Packages

Mon, 23 Mar 2015 16:00:54 +0000

WebJars has been my hobby project for almost 3 years and thanks to tons of help from the community the project now has almost 900 JavaScript libraries in Maven Central. In February 2015 there were over 500,000 downloads of WebJars! Up until now all of the WebJars have been manually created, deployed, and maintained. Today I’m happy to launch Bower WebJars, an on-demand service that allows users to deploy new WebJars from Bower packages.

Salesforce Canvas Quick Start for Java Developers

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 21:16:06 +0000

Salesforce provides a variety of different ways to integrate external apps into the Salesforce UI. Canvas is an iframe-based approach for loading externally hosted UIs into pages on Salesforce. The nice thing about Canvas versus a plain iframe is that Canvas has a JavaScript bridge which enables secure communication between the external iframe and Salesforce. This communication happens in the context of the Salesforce user and doesn’t require the typical OAuth handshake. Because Canvas apps live outside of Salesforce they can be built with any language and run anywhere, including Heroku.

Introducing Force WebJars: Add JavaScript Libs to Salesforce With a Click

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:07:35 +0000

The typical method of adding JavaScript and CSS libraries (e.g. jQuery, Bootstrap, and AngularJS) to Salesforce environments is to locate a library’s download, download it, then upload it to Salesforce, then figure out the structure of the files so that you can use them from Visualforce. Using WebJars as a basis, I’ve created an easy way to add libraries to Salesforce, called Force WebJars.

Here is a quick demo:

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Goodbye Java Posse Roundup – Hello WTF 2015

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:20:28 +0000

For the past 8 (maybe 9?) years the absolute best yearly conference I’ve attended has been The Java Posse Roundup in Crested Butte, Colorado. At most conferences my favorite parts are the conversations at the bar and writing code with other attendees. The Java Posse Roundup has always been a conference just of those best parts.

Even though The Java Posse is no-more, the Java Posse Roundup will live on as the Winter Tech Forum. I’m sure that many of the same developers will come since it has been a yearly pilgrimage for many. But hopefully the new name helps bring an even more diverse audience this year.

Introducing Gulp Launcher

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 16:50:47 +0000

Many developers already have the Node.js toolchain installed on their machines but when I lead workshops there are always a few who don’t. The process of installing Node build toolchains can take quite a bit of time for new users (especially on Windows). To simplify the process of getting the gulp toolchain setup, Bruce Eckel and I created gulp launcher. With a fresh system you can run gulp with only one download and one command:

Java Doesn’t Suck – You’re Just Using it Wrong

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:14:05 +0000

I’ve been building enterprise Java web apps since servlets were created. In that time the Java ecosystem has changed a lot but sadly many enterprise Java developers are stuck in some very painful and inefficient ways of doing things. In my travels I continue to see Java The Sucky Parts - but it doesn’t have to be that way. It is time for enterprises to move past the sucky ways they are using the Java platform. Here is a list of the suckiest parts of Java that I see most often and some recommendations for how to move past them.

Dreamforce 2014: Wearables, Engagement Apps, $1M Hackathon

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:15:08 +0000

Dreamforce 2014 is quickly approaching and this year is going to be amazing! I’ll be presenting a few sessions and helping at the $1 Million Hackathon. Here are my sessions:

Integrating Clouds & Humans with the Salesforce Wear Developer Packs

As smart watches and other human-integrated devices make their way into the mainstream, developers will need to quickly ramp up to these new paradigms and interaction models. Integrating these new wearable devices with Salesforce connects users to their businesses and customers in new ways. Join us as we use code and examples to dive into the architecture and patterns for developing wearable Salesforce apps with the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Android Wear.

Jekyll on Heroku

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 19:46:45 +0000

Jekyll is simple static content compiler popularized by GitHub Pages. If you use Jekyll in a GitHub repo a static website will automatically be created for you by running Jekyll on your content sources (e.g. Markdown). That works well but there are cases where it is nice to deploy a Jekyll site on Heroku. After trying (and failing) to follow many of the existing blogs about running Jekyll on Heroku, I cornered my coworker Terence Lee and got some help. Turns out it is pretty simple.

An Architects Guide to the Salesforce1 Platform

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 15:52:26 +0000

Salesforce.com was initially created as a Sales Force Automation (SFA) / Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application in the cloud but has evolved over the years into a modern platform for all types of enterprise applications. Now the Salesforce name is a legacy artifact of that past. This is like the name Frigidaire which is still the name for a company that now produces much more than Frigidaires (i.e. Refrigerators). The Salesforce1 Platform still provides the SFA & CRM applications but is also a foundation for building modern systems.

Building & Deploying Reactive Service Pipelines — Live in Salt Lake City

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 20:25:31 +0000

This Wednesday (Aug 6, 2014) I will be presenting Building & Deploying Reactive Service Pipelines at the Utah Scala Enthusiasts group in Salt Lake City. Here is the abstract:

Composition of micro-service is a modern integration pattern that couples nicely with Reactive and Continuous Delivery. These paradigms enable small teams to move quickly while integrating cross-silo data stores for modern JavaScript UIs and REST services. This session will use Scala, Play Framework, and Heroku to illustrate how to build and deploy Reactive Service Pipelines.

Going Reactive at OSCON 2014

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 16:31:17 +0000

This year at OSCON I will be leading a hands-on lab and presenting about Reactive, Play Framework, and Scala. Here are two sessions:

Reactive All The Way Down (lab) - 9:00am Monday, July 21

In this tutorial you will build a Reactive application with Play Framework, Scala, WebSockets, and AngularJS. We will get started with a template app in Typesafe Activator. Then we will add a Reactive RESTful JSON service and a WebSocket in Scala. We will then build the UI with AngularJS.

Scala vs Java 8 at the Scala Summit

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 15:31:44 +0000

Bruce Eckel will be hosting the Scala Summit in Crested Butte again this summer. The Open Spaces conference will be September 15 - 19 which is a perfect time of year up in the Colorado Rockies. The theme of the Scala Summit this year is Scala vs. The New Features in Java 8. So there will definitely be some fascinating discussions. I’m also looking forward to working on some IoT projects during the hackathons. Bruce and I have a few pcDuino devices that will be fun to get Scala working on. Hope to see you there!

Salesforce Gradle Plugin

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 15:35:37 +0000

As part of the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Android Wear I created a Gradle plugin that fetches and deploys Salesforce code (Apex). Gradle is the default build tool for Android but it can also be used with many other languages. For instance, here is an example build.gradle file for a project that fetches all of the Apex classes and Visualforce pages:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenLocal()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.jamesward:force-gradle-plugin:0.1'
    }
}

apply plugin: 'force'

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
}

force {
    username = forceUsername
    password = forcePassword
    unpackagedComponents = ["ApexPage": "*", "ApexClass": "*"]
}

The unpackagedComponents definition uses the Salesforce Metadata Types and pulls everything specified down into the src/main/salesforce/unpackaged directory when you run the forceMetadataFetch Gradle task. The forceMetadataDeploy Gradle task deploys everything in the src/main/salesforce/unpackaged directory to Salesforce.

Create Webhooks on Salesforce.com

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 17:21:02 +0000

Webhooks are the modern, web-oriented way for servers to receive notifications from other servers. For instance, when an event happens on a server, like Salesforce.com, your own custom application can receive the event via a web request.

Salesforce already has a built-in way to handle events called Triggers which run on Salesforce via Apex code. However, you may want to receive these events in your own custom application. In Salesforce it is pretty easy to write the Apex to do this but why not automate that process? I built the Salesforce Webhook Creator to do just that. Here is a short demo:

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for Salesforce.com

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:53:10 +0000

By default browsers limit access to cross-origin resources. For instance, if a JavaScript app is loaded from foo.com then it isn’t allowed to access content from bar.com because this would be a significant security hole. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is the way to workaround this limitation in modern browsers.

Salesforce.com has a great REST api but unfortunately it doesn’t yet have native CORS support (but you can vote for this feature). Having CORS support comes in handy with JavaScript UIs on top of the Salesforce REST APIs. Luckily you can easily workaround this by proxying the API requests through the server that is serving the JavaScript UI so that the REST requests are not cross-origin. But it is tedious to set this up for every app, so I created a generic Salesforce CORS proxy.

Integrating Clouds & Humans with Salesforce and Android Wear

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:53:57 +0000

Right out of the gate in my new job at Salesforce.com and I have been working on a pretty exciting new project to integrate clouds and humans using Salesforce.com and Android Wear. This week Salesforce launched six new open source developers packs for wearables. I created the Salesforce Wear Pack for Android Wear to help developers start building cloud-driven wearable apps for emerging devices like smart watches. Check out a short demo of the sample app I built:

Testing Webhooks Was a Pain – So I Fixed the Glitch

Wed, 11 Jun 2014 15:13:52 +0000

Popularized by GitHub, Webhooks are the modern way for apps to receive notifications / events from other servers. But testing Webhooks has always been pretty painful, especially if you want to automate those tests. So I created a little app to make it easier. Before we get into that lets cover the basics…

A Webhook is a way for you to define a URL that is called by another service when a particular event occurs. For example, you can configure your repo on GitHub to have a Webhook that calls http://foo.com/pr when a new Pull Request is created. The old alternative to this is polling (bad).

Building JavaScript Client Apps with gulp

Thu, 08 May 2014 23:10:29 +0000

Yesterday I started playing around with gulp which is a build tool for JavaScript applications. My goal was to have a build for a fully client-side application built with AngularJS and Bootstrap. In modern JavaScript apps we now need a build tool to compile various pieces, manage libraries, do production transformations (like minification), and to provide a nice development cycle when working on a project. I created a Gulp Starter project that has the following:

Presenting Going Reactive with Java 8 Next Week in Boulder & Denver

Tue, 06 May 2014 16:31:43 +0000

Next week I will be presenting Going Reactive with Java 8 at the Boulder and Denver Java User Groups. Here is the session description:

Java 8’s lambdas make building Reactive applications a whole lot easier and cleaner. Through copious code examples this session will show you how to build event-driven, scalable, resilient, and responsive applications with Java 8, Play Framework and Akka. On the web side you will learn about using lambdas for async & non-blocking requests & WebSockets. You will also learn how the actor model in Akka pairs well with lambdas to create an event-driven foundation that provides concurrency, clustering and fault-tolerance.

Optimizing Static Asset Loading with Play Framework

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:56:52 +0000

Modern web applications are a mix of a back-end services, dynamic web pages, custom static assets, and library-based static assets. To maintain a productive development process it is easiest to have all this stuff in one project. But in production there are a number of optimizations that can dramatically speed up the loading of the application.

HTTP 304, Not Modified, responses enable the browser to not re-download an entire static asset a second time. Far-future expires enable the browser to cache static assets for a very long time so that they never request them a second time. The challenge with far-future expires is that you need to have a way to invalidate that cache. Asset fingerprinting allows you to do that invalidation. GZip encoding compresses the static assets. Putting static assets on a CDN caches the static assets near the consumer of the content.

New Adventures for a Technology Adventurer

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 05:49:31 +0000

Over the past year and a half I’ve had the great privilege of working with some really amazing people and projects at Typesafe. I’m a huge fan of the Typesafe Platform and I’ve really enjoyed being part of Activator, Play Framework, Akka, Scala, Slick, and the Reactive Manifesto. But at heart I’m a Technology Adventurer who loves to learn and create new things. Now it is time for me to embark on a new adventure at Salesforce.com where I will be helping create something new.

Going Reactive with Java 8 – Tonight at Triangle JUG

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:46:24 +0000

Tonight I will be presenting Going Reactive with Java 8 at the Triangle Java Users Group. Here is the session description:

Java 8’s lambdas make building Reactive applications a whole lot easier and cleaner. Through copious code examples this session will show you how to build event-driven, scalable, resilient, and responsive applications with Java 8, Play Framework and Akka. On the web side you will learn about using lambdas for async & non-blocking requests & WebSockets. You will also learn how the actor model in Akka pairs well with lambdas to create an event-driven foundation that provides concurrency, clustering and fault-tolerance.

Presenting in SF: sbt-web & Reactive All the Way Down

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 21:59:32 +0000

This week I will be presenting twice in San Francisco at SF Scala:

Thursday April 10: Introducing sbt-web - A Node & WebJar Compatible Asset Pipeline for the Typesafe Platform

sbt-web is a new web asset pipeline for Play Framework and other sbt-based frameworks. It can pull dependencies from both Node and WebJars. The pipeline covers all of the phases of client-side development, including: linting, compiling (CoffeeScript, LESS, etc), minification, concatenation, fingerprinting, and gzipping. This session will give you an introduction to sbt-web and show you how to get started using it.

Scala and Vaadin Webinar

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:31:52 +0000

On Monday March 24th I will be co-presenting a Webinar about Scala and Vaadin. In this Webinar you will learn how to create great looking web UIs with Vaadin and Scala. No prior Scala experience is necessary. We will start with the basics. Hope to see you there!

WebJars Now on the jsDelivr CDN

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 14:59:04 +0000

WebJars were created to work well with Content Deliver Networks (CDNs) and now thanks to jsDelivr there is a great public CDN hosting all of the WebJar assets! jsDelivr is “a free super-fast CDN for developers and webmasters.” What a perfect match for WebJars!

Here is how it works… Just prefix //cdn.jsdelivr.net in front of your WebJar asset URLs. That’s it! For instance, if the URL you setup to jquery.js is /webjars/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.js then to use the jsDelivr CDN the URL would be: //cdn.jsdelivr.net/webjars/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.js

Presenting Building Reactive Apps in Denver

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:30:18 +0000

This Thursday (March 20, 2014) I will be presenting Building Reactive Apps at the Reactive Programming Enthusiasts Denver.

Here is the session description:

Non-blocking, asynchronous, and reactive programming models are all the rage today. This session will explore in-depth why these patterns are important in modern apps. We will drill down and see how to apply them to event-driven web, mobile, and RESTful apps. To illustrate the concepts, we will use Java, Scala, Akka, and the Play Framework as examples.

Official Support for RequireJS in WebJars

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:29:32 +0000

WebJars Locator now has direct support for RequireJS! For a while the WebJars Play helper library has had support for RequireJS which was great but it had a few issues and wasn’t useful outside of Play.

There is now a org.webjars.RequireJS.getSetupJavaScript(String webjarUrlPrefix) method that produces the RequireJS configuration for the WebJars you are using. If you are using only the jQuery WebJar then that JavaScript configuration looks like:

var webjars = {
    versions: { 'requirejs': '2.1.10', 'jquery': '2.1.0' },
    path: function(webjarid, path) {
        return '/webjars/' + webjarid + '/' + webjars.versions[webjarid] + '/' + path;
    }
};

var require = {
    callback: function() {
        // no-op webjars requirejs plugin loader for backwards compatibility
        define('webjars', function () {
            return { load: function (name, req, onload, config) { onload(); } }
        });

        // all of the webjar configs from their webjars-requirejs.js files

        // webjar config for jquery
        requirejs.config({
            paths: { "jquery": webjars.path("jquery", "jquery") },
            shim: { "jquery": { "exports": "$" } }
        });
    }
}

This sets up the paths for RequireJS modules in WebJars and pulls in any other custom configuration from the WebJar’s RequireJS config. To use this setup JavaScript with RequireJS you can add something like the following to your web page:

Presenting Play Framework and Reactive This Week in Boulder, Dallas, and Vancouver

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 18:09:48 +0000

This week I’ll be circling around North America presenting about Play Framework and Reactive Apps. Here is the lineup:

Tuesday Feb 11 in Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder JUG:
6pm - Intro to Play Framework
7:30pm - Building Reactive Apps
Wednesday Feb 12 in Dallas, Texas at the Java MUG:
6:30pm - Building Reactive Apps
Thursday Feb 13 in Vancouver, BC at the inaugural Vancouver Reactive Programmers meetup:
7pm - Building Reactive Apps

It is going to be a fun week - I hope to see you at one of these events!

Building Reactive Apps in Boston

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 18:27:00 +0000

Tomorrow night (Jan 15, 2014) I will be presenting Building Reactive Apps in Boston. There will be lots of live coding and only a couple slides. Hope to see you there!

NightHacking with Play Framework and Scala

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 16:00:30 +0000

At Devoxx 2013 Stephen Chin interviewed me on his NightHacking video podcast about Play Framework, Scala, and Reactive. Here is the recording with some live coding fun:

WebJars Took Off in 2013

Mon, 30 Dec 2013 15:26:28 +0000

A little over a year ago I launched WebJars with the goal of bringing some simplicity and sanity to how client-side JavaScript and CSS libraries are used in the JVM ecosystem. Since then WebJars has grown to 237 libraries and around 40,000 downloads per month! Check out the stats from Maven Central:

Note: It seems that some of the download stats for September are counted as October since averaging the two produces a more likely curve.

Play Framework and IntelliJ IDEA 13

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:04:04 +0000

IntelliJ IDEA 13 has been released! My favorite new feature is the sbt project support that alleviates the need to generate project files for Play Framework apps. Here is a short screencast that will show you how to create a new Play app with Typesafe Activator and then open that project in IntelliJ IDEA 13:

Pretty sweet stuff!

From Ubuntu to Linux Mint with Cinnamon

Fri, 29 Nov 2013 17:26:28 +0000

I’m becoming a technology curmudgeon. For as long as I can remember I’ve used a traditional window manager on Linux. Maybe I’m just stuck in my ways but I’m convinced that the combination of Focus Follows Mouse (with a 450ms auto-raise delay), the ThinkPad TrackPoint, and middle-click scrolling is the most efficient way to navigate windows. So Ubuntu’s neglect of that paradigm in favor of something that feels too much like my wife’s Mac has caused me to seek greener pastures.

Intro to Reactive Composition with the Typesafe Reactive Platform

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 16:34:22 +0000

Reactive apps are all the rage lately. The Reactive Manifesto now has over 2000 signatures and all of my recent presentations about Reactive have been packed. I’ve just recorded a screencast that explains the async and non-blocking aspect of Reactive. This screencast walks through how to do Reactive Requests and Reactive Composition with the Typesafe Reactive Platform. Using Play Framework it is easy to handle async and non-blocking requests (Reactive Requests) and compose them together. This can be done with both Java and Scala but for this screencast I use Scala. Check it out and let me know what you think:

Building Reactive Apps in Austin

Mon, 14 Oct 2013 16:45:05 +0000

Tomorrow night, October 15, I will be presenting in Austin Texas about Building Reactive Apps. Here is what I will be talking about:

Non-blocking, asynchronous, and reactive programming models are all the rage today. This session will explore in-depth why these patterns are important in modern apps. We will drill down and see how to apply them to event-driven web, mobile, and RESTful apps. To illustrate the concepts, we will use Java, Scala, Akka, and the Play Framework as examples.

Play Framework and Reactive Presos in New York

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 20:16:41 +0000

This week I will be in New York presenting about Play Framework and Reactive Apps. Here is the lineup:

Diving Into Play Framework’s Deep End - Tuesday, October 8

Play Framework is simple to get started with, but it also has some very advanced and powerful features. This session will explore some of these features, including Action Composition, Filters, Reactive Requests, WebSockets, Advanced JSON, and Dependency Injection. Through lots of code, you’ll dive (or be thrown) into the deep end of Play.

JavaOne 2013 Hackathon, Presos & Webinar

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 17:39:45 +0000

Next week I will be at and around JavaOne for a number of events and presentations. Here they are:

On Monday I will be leading a BYOL Hackathon at the new Typesafe office, followed by a roundtable discussion and a party. RSVP now to get a spot!

On Tuesday at JavaOne I will be presenting two sessions:

Web Fundamentals

Many of us have worked with abstractions over Web technologies such as HTTP, but REST, HTML5, and WebSocket are requiring us to understand how the Web really works. What actually happens when a Web browser opens a Web page? What is the connection between session state and cookies? How do HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together? This session starts at the beginning and walks through the Web’s fundamental building blocks.

Going Reactive at the Denver Java Users Group

Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:08:24 +0000

Tonight (Sept 11, 2013) I will be presenting Going Reactive! Building Software for the Real-Time Generation at the Denver JUG. Here is what is on tap:

Non-blocking, asynchronous, and reactive are all the rage today. This session will explore why the patterns are important in modern apps and how to apply them to event-driven and RESTful apps. To illustrate the concepts, Java, Akka, and Play Framework will be used as examples.

Building Reactive Apps at SpringOne 2013

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:59:30 +0000

Next week at SpringOne 2GX 2013 I’ll be presenting a session about Building Reactive Apps. Here is the description:

Non-blocking, asynchronous, and reactive are all the rage today. This session will explore why the patterns are important in modern apps and how to apply them to event-driven web, mobile, and RESTful apps. To illustrate the concepts, Java, Scala, Akka, and Play Framework will be used as examples.

Hope to see you there!

Building Reactive Apps with the Typesafe Platform

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 20:18:51 +0000

It is becoming pretty clear that Reactive is the next big thing in software. But there aren’t very many resources yet about how to actually build a Reactive application. Recently I hosted a webinar about “Building Reactive Apps with the Typesafe Platform” where I tried to explain Reactive in a tangible way using the Reactive Stocks sample app from Typesafe Activator. Here is the recording of that presentation:

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

An Alternative to Required API Keys

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:50:24 +0000

Requiring API keys to JSON services for publicly available data is leading us down the unfortunate path to screen scraping and HTML parsing. The justification for requiring API keys is that abuses of these data APIs are rampant and without the keys there would be no way to deal with bad behavior. Rate limiting is one approach but it is easily gamed. We need a better solution.

Required keys make it much harder for developers to learn new things. I recently created a sample application for Typesafe Activator called Reactive Stocks which fetches publicly available tweets and then does a sentiment analysis on the tweets. The goal of the sample is to quickly teach developers about how to build Reactive applications. If each developer had to go through the process of setting up Twitter API keys just to get the app running, many would give up. Most developers prefer to instantly see something working and then deconstruct it to learn how it works.

OSCON Workshop: 6 Minute Apps! Build Your First Modern Web App

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:45:54 +0000

Next week at OSCON 2013 in Portland I’ll be leading a hands-on workshop on Monday at 1:30pm where we’ll build a modern web app with Play Framework and Scala. Here are the details:

6 Minute Apps! Build Your First Modern Web App

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around, the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented.

Scala Summit 2013

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 14:26:55 +0000

This summer Bruce Eckel will be hosting the Scala Summit in Crested Butte on August 19 - 21. I’ve been to many of Bruce’s events and they are my favorites. The hallway conversations at regular conferences are always the best and most educational part, so why not have a conference that is just the interactive bits? The OpenSpaces style is only interactive. The agenda at an OpenSpaces conference is determined by the attendees. This leads to rich discussions and collaborative project hacking. I usually bring a project I want to work on with others and then find people who want to write some code with me. This year at the Scala Summit I’ll be working on some Scala template apps for Typesafe Activator. Hopefully you can join me!

Auto-Refresh for Play Framework Apps

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:02:02 +0000

Over this past weekend I built a little tool for Play Framework app developers which auto-refreshes an app in Chrome when the source code or static assets change.

Check out a video demonstration:

For information on how to set it up, check out the project on GitHub: https://github.com/jamesward/play-auto-refresh

Securing Single Page Apps and REST Services

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:06:17 +0000

The move towards Single Page Apps and RESTful services open the doors to a much better way of securing web applications. Traditional web applications use browser cookies to identify a user when a request is made to the server. This approach is fundamentally flawed and causes many applications to be vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. When used correctly, RESTful services can avoid this vulnerability altogether. Before we go into the solution, lets recap the problem.

Intro to Play Framework at Boulder Area Scala Enthusiasts

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:36:41 +0000

This Wednesday (April 24, 2013) I’ll be presenting an Intro to Play Framework at the Boulder Area Scala Enthusiasts meetup. Also, Dustin Whitney will be presenting an Intro to Scala.

Hopefully see you in Boulder!

Presenting Play Framework at Devoxx UK & FR 2013

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:38:39 +0000

This week I’m at Devoxx UK and Devoxx FR presenting about Play Framework. Here are the sessions:

Tuesday March 26 @ Devoxx UK: Mobile Apps with HTML5 & Play Framework - With Nicolas Leroux
Wednesday March 27 @ Devoxx FR: 6 Minute Apps! Build Your First Modern Web App - With Nicolas Leroux
Thursday March 28 @ Devoxx FR: Play Framework vs. Grails Smackdown - With Matt Raible

It’s going to be an awesome week!

Intro to Play Framework This Week in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:07:39 +0000

This week I’ll be in Canada presenting an Introduction to Play Framework:

I’m looking forward to meeting our Scala northerly neighbors!

Q&A at the Seattle Scala User Group Tonight

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:34:53 +0000

Tonight I will be doing a question and answer session at the Seattle Scala User Group. So bring your Scala, Akka, and Play Framework questions! Hope to see you there.

Utah JUG: Client/Server Apps with Play Framework, HTML5 and Java

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:52:26 +0000

Tonight (Feburary 21, 2013) I will be presenting at the Utah JUG about Client/Server Apps with Play Framework, HTML5 and Java. Here is the session description:

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around, the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented.

This session will teach you how to pull together jQuery, LESS, Twitter, Bootstrap, and some CoffeeScript to build the Client. The Server could be anything that talks HTTP, but this session will use the Play Framework.

DevNexus 2013: Architecting Event-Driven Web, Mobile, and RESTful Apps & Introduction to Play Framework

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:07:08 +0000

At DevNexus 2013 I will be giving two talks:

Architecting Event-Driven Web, Mobile, and RESTful Apps

Non-blocking, asynchronous, and reactive are all the rage today. This session will explore why the patterns are important in modern apps and how to apply them to event-driven web, mobile, and RESTful apps. To illustrate the concepts, Java, Scala, Akka, and Play Framework will be used as examples.

Introduction to Play Framework

The Play Framework is a lightweight, stateless web framework for Java and Scala applications. With Play you can build traditional page-based web apps or modern web apps using REST, JavaScript, and HTML5. This session will give you an introduction to building web applications with the Play Framework.

DeveloperWeek 2013: Modern Web Apps With Scala and Play

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:03:22 +0000

Tomorrow (February 5, 2013) I will be presenting about Modern Web Apps With Scala and Play at DeveloperWeek in San Francisco. Here is the session description:

The web application architecture is rapidly evolving to accommodate mobile, more interactive experiences, integrated real-time, and service composition. This session will teach you how to build modern web applications using Play Framework and Scala. You will learn the end-to-end architecture including: non-blocking service composition, RESTful JSON endpoints, single page UIs, and real-time push.

Video: Create and Run Play Framework Apps in IntelliJ

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:10:35 +0000

The Play Framework community voted heavily to add support for Play Framework 2 in IntelliJ IDEA and JetBrains came through! Here is a short (3min) screencast that shows you how to create and run a Play 2 app in IntelliJ 12 (Ultimate Edition) with the Play Framework plugin:

If you’d like to learn more, check out the detailed tutorial from JetBrains.

CodeMash 2013: Client/Server Apps with HTML5, Play, CoffeeScript

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:13:14 +0000

Today I’ll be presenting at CodeMash 2013 about Client/Server Apps with HTML5, Play, CoffeeScript, and More. Here is the session description:

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented. This session will teach you how to pull together jQuery, LESS, Twitter Bootstrap, and some CoffeeScript to build the Client. The Server could be anything that talks HTTP but this session will use the Play Framework. You will also learn how to deploy Client/Server web apps on the cloud using a Content Delivery Network (Amazon CloudFront) for the Client and a Cloud Application Provider (Heroku) for the Server.

Presenting in Dallas: Play Framework, HTML5 and Java

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:17:46 +0000

Tomorrow (December 12, 2012) I will be presenting in Dallas at the JavaMUG about Client/Server Apps with Play Framework, HTML5 and Java. Here is the session abstract:

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around, the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented.

This session will teach you how to pull together jQuery, LESS, Twitter, Bootstrap, and some CoffeeScript to build the Client. The Server could be anything that talks HTTP, but this session will use the Play Framework.

WebJars Officially Launched!

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:04:10 +0000

Check it out: webjars.org

Back in April I started an experiment called “WebJars” to see if it would be useful to package web libraries (JavaScript, CSS, etc) as Jar files. WebJars allow you to declaratively set client-side application dependencies just like we do for the server-side. A nice side effect of this is transitive dependencies. For instance, if you specify Bootstrap 2.2.1 as a dependency, then you automatically also get jQuery 1.8.2 as well. WebJars also make it easy to know what versions of web libraries are being used since not all web libraries use versions in their naming conventions.

Presenting at GraphConnect 2012: Building & Deploying Graph-based Web Apps

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:10:42 +0000

On November 6th I will be presenting Building & Deploying Graph-based Web Apps at the GraphConnect 2012 conference in San Francisco. Here is the session description:

This session will teach you how to build a Graph-based web application with Java, Play Framework, and Neo4j. You will also lean how to deploy the application on the cloud with Heroku. The session will primarily be code and live demos.

I hope to see you there!

JavaOne Video: Introduction to Play Framework

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:55:32 +0000

Check out the recording of my Introduction to Play Framework at JavaOne 2012. If you want to try Play Framework on your own you might want to start with my Play2torial for Java. There you will walk through all the major parts of building a modern web app: Models, Controllers, Views, Tests, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Twitter Bootstrap, and Cloud Deployment. Let me know how it goes!

JavaOne Video: Client/Server Apps with HTML5 & Java

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:10:08 +0000

The recording of my JavaOne 2012 presentation, “Client/Server Apps with HTML5 and Java”, has been posted! In this presentation I walk through the modern web application architecture and how to build Client/Server style web apps with HTML5 and Java. Check it out and let me know what you think!

New Adventures with Play, Scala, and Akka at Typesafe

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:20:57 +0000

Today I’m heading out on a new adventure at Typesafe, the company behind Play Framework, Scala, and Akka!

The past year and a half at Heroku have been really amazing. Not only have I enjoyed teaching others about Heroku, I’ve enjoyed my own frequent use of Heroku. It says something when a technology switch makes one never want to go back to the way it was done before. This is the experience that I (and many others) have had with Heroku. I can’t imagine going back to managing servers and painful deployments. I’m certainly a Heroku Evangelist for Life, but it’s time for a new adventure.

NoSQL Inside SQL with Java, Spring, Hibernate, and PostgreSQL

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:26:34 +0000

There are many benefits to schema-less NoSQL datastores, but there are always trade-offs. The primary gift the NoSQL movement has given us is the variety of options we now have for data persistence. With NoSQL we no longer must try to shoehorn everything into a relational model. Now the challenge is in deciding which persistence model fits best with each domain in a system and then combining those models in a cohesive way. The general term to describe this is [Polyglot Persistence][1] and there are many ways to accomplish it. Lets walk through how you can combine a regular SQL model with a key-value NoSQL model using Java, Spring, Hibernate, and PostgreSQL.

Heroku and Play Next Week in Chicago and New York

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:40:19 +0000

Next week I’ll be in Chicago and New York for a few presentation about Heroku, Play Framework, and running Java apps on the cloud.

October 16 at the Chicago JUG: Java, Play! and Scala Apps on Heroku
October 17 at the Chicago Heroku User Group: Hands-on Heroku - Deploying Apps on the Cloud
October 18 at the NYJavaSig: Client/Server Apps with Play2 Framework, HTML5 and Java
October 19 at the NYJavaSig: NYJavaSIG Cloud/HPC - Hands-on with Java on Heroku

Hope to see you there!

Run Revel Apps on Heroku

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:42:24 +0000

UPDATE: There have been some updates to my Revel Heroku Buildpack that make it work better and with newer versions of Revel. Check out the details.

Revel is a Play-like web framework for Go. I’m new to the Go programming language but I’ve heard good things. So I thought I’d take Revel for a spin and get it working on Heroku. Luckily there is already a Go Buildpack and a great article on how to use it.

Heroku & Play Framework at JavaOne 2012

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:52:58 +0000

This year at JavaOne I’ll be presenting two session and participating in one BOF:

BOF4149 - Web Framework Smackdown 2012 - Monday @ 8:30pm

Much has changed since the first Web framework smackdown, at JavaOne 2005. Or has it? The 2012 edition of this popular panel discussion surveys the current landscape of Web UI frameworks for the Java platform. The 2005 edition featured JSF, Webwork, Struts, Tapestry, and Wicket. The 2012 edition features representatives of the current crop of frameworks, with a special emphasis on frameworks that leverage HTML5 and thin-server architecture. Java Champion Markus Eisele leads the lively discussion with panelists James Ward (Play), Graeme Rocher (Grails), Edward Burns (JSF) and Santiago Pericasgeertsen (Avatar).

Atlanta Presentation: Practicing Continuous Delivery

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:43:20 +0000

Tomorrow I’ll be presenting Practicing Continuous Delivery on the Cloud at the Atlanta No Fluff Just Stuff conference. Here is the session description:

This session will teach you best practices and patterns for doing Continuous Delivery / Continuous Deployment in Cloud environments. You will learn how to handle schema migrations, maintain dev/prod parity, manage configuration and scaling. This session will use Heroku as an example platform but the patterns could be implemented anywhere.

Video: Running Java, Play! and Scala in the Cloud

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:37:41 +0000

JavaZone 2012 was an awesome conference (as usual)! The video of my presentation about Running Java, Play! and Scala in the Cloud is now available. Check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Heroku at JavaZone 2012

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:59:17 +0000

I’m really looking forward to being back at JavaZone in Oslo this September! I’ll be speaking about Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud. This session will teach you how to get started deploying Java and Scala apps on Heroku. I’ll be around for the whole conference, so if anyone wants to grab a drink, deploy some apps, or write some code with me, then let me know. See you there!

Dreamforce 2012: Java Apps on Heroku & Force.com

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:51:19 +0000

Dreamforce 2012 is going to be a fantastic event! And not just because Red Hot Chili Peppers, Colin Powell, and Richard Branson will be there. I’ll also be there talking about Building Java Apps on Heroku and Force.com. Here is the description for my session:

In this session you will learn how to build Social Enterprise applications using Salesforce, Heroku, and Java. Through live coding and demonstrations you will learn how to instantly deploy and scale Java apps on the cloud with Heroku. You will also learn how to integrate those applications with Salesforce and Force.com through REST.

Getting Started with Clojure on Heroku

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:27:56 +0000

Last week I introduced the Den of Clojure to Heroku. I really enjoyed learning more about Clojure and experiencing super simple Clojure deployment on Heroku. For those who haven’t yet deployed Clojure on Heroku, lets walk through 8 quick steps to get you started:

Install the Heroku Toolbelt and Leiningen
Login to Heroku from the command line: ```bash heroku login

    
    If this is your first time logging into Heroku from the command line then you will be led through some steps to associate an SSH key with your Heroku account.</li> 
    
      * Create a new Leiningen build definition by creating a file named **project.clj** containing: ```clojure
(defproject hello-clojure-noir "0.1.0-SNAPSHOT"
  :main web
  :dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]
                 [noir "1.2.1"]])

    As you can see from the dependencies, this simple app uses the [Noir web framework][4].</li> 
    
      * Create a simple Noir app by creating a file named **src/web.clj** containing: ```clojure

(ns web (:use noir.core) (:require [noir.server :as server]))

Containerless Spring MVC

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:54:21 +0000

Many of the new JVM-based web frameworks are ditching containers and WAR files and instead using a WAR-less / Containerless approach. But that doesn’t mean you have to ditch your favorite Java web framework. A while back I posted about going containerless with Tapestry. Now lets do the same with Spring MVC. You can grab the full source code from GitHub.

First we need a build that defines the dependencies. Here is the build.gradle file for my Gradle build:

Heroku at the Denver Clojure Meetup

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:19:54 +0000

Tonight (August 9, 2012) I’ll be at the Den of Clojure talking about Running Clojure Apps on the Cloud with Heroku. Hope to see you there!

Edge Caching With Play 2, Heroku, and CloudFront

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:19:50 +0000

Web applications are primarily comprised of data, services, and the User Interface (UI). The UI is comprised of HTML, CSS, images, and probably JavaScript. In the traditional web architecture all of the UI assets are static files except the HTML which is dynamically generated by the server. In the modern web architecture the entire UI is static files that consume RESTful / JSON services. The static files for the UI must be downloaded to the client so the less time it takes for them to be downloaded, the better the overall performance of the application.

Integrating Java Spring Apps on Heroku with Force.com REST APIs

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:44:38 +0000

Recently I co-presented a webinar about how to integrate Java Spring Apps on Heroku with the Force.com / Salesforce.com REST APIs. Check out the recording:

I’ve also created an in-depth walk through of the code example and step-by-step instructions for setting up and deploying the example Java Spring app on Heroku. Check it out and let me know how it goes.

Screencast: Heroku Eclipse Plugin

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:53:22 +0000

Heroku now has an Eclipse Plugin that makes it super easy to deploy and manage Java apps on the Cloud! Here is a screencast that will show you how to get started with the Heroku Eclipse Plugin:

To learn more check out the Heroku Eclipse Integration site. Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes!

The Magic Behind Heroku’s “git push” Deployment

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:10:43 +0000

In my spare time I help out with a little app called [Greg’s Toolkit][1] that was built before I knew about Heroku. The app runs on EC2 and deploying new versions of the app is pretty tedious. Here is the deployment instructions copied directly from the project’s wiki:

./gradlew war
scp  ./gft_server/build/libs/gft_server.war api.gregstoolkit.com:
ssh api.gregstoolkit.com
cd /opt/apache-tomcat-7.0.21
sudo -u www-data bin/shutdown.sh
cd webapps/ROOT
sudo rm -r *
sudo -u www-data jar -xvf ~/gft_server.war
sudo -u www-data sed -i 's/dev/prod/' WEB-INF/web.xml
cd ../..
sudo -u www-data bin/startup.sh

That certainly isn’t as cumbersome as some deployment methods but it is time consuming, error-prone, and causes downtime.

Client/Server Apps with HTML5 & Java at OSCON 2012

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:22:34 +0000

This Friday at OSCON 2012 I’ll be doing a presentation about Client/Server Apps with HTML5 and Java. Here is the session description:

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented. This session will teach you how to pull together jQuery, LESS, Twitter Bootstrap, and some CoffeeScript to build the Client. The Server could be anything that talks HTTP but this session will use the Play Framework. You will also learn how to deploy Client/Server web apps on the cloud using a Content Delivery Network (Amazon CloudFront) for the Client and a Cloud Application Provider (Heroku) for the Server.

Getting Started with Play 2, Scala, and Squeryl

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:43:24 +0000

My friend Ryan Knight and I co-authored an article which has just been published on Artima: Getting Started with Play 2, Scala, and Squeryl. This article will help you get started building a Play 2 application from scratch that uses Scala and Squeryl for ORM. The article also covers how use ScalaTest, JSON, jQuery, CoffeeScript, and deployment on Heroku. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Continuous Delivery on the Cloud at the Nashville JUG

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:25:04 +0000

Tomorrow night (July 10, 2012) I’ll be presenting about Continuous Delivery on the Cloud at the Nashville Java Users’ Group. This presentation focuses on how to implement continuous delivery in cloud environments. I will use Play 2 and Heroku to illustrate concepts like managing configuration, schema changes, and externalized state. I hope to see you there!

Denver Salesforce.com Developer Meetup TONIGHT!

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:49:50 +0000

Hey Denver Salesforce.com and Heroku developers! Tonight we are doing a developer meetup at Wynkoop. Come on down for free food, drinks, and networking from 6 - 8. RSVP and hopefully I’ll see you tonight!

Optimizing Play 2 for Database-Driven Apps

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:12:37 +0000

Update: There is now a detailed doc in Play’s documentation about configuring Play’s thread pools.

Last week Matt Raible and I presented the Play vs. Grails Smackdown at ÜberConf. The goal of the session was to compare Play 2 + Java with Grails by creating the same app with each framework. We used a number of criteria for the comparison including some benchmarks. You can read more about the results in Matt’s session recap blog. After presenting the results we learned that it’s pretty important to optimize Play 2’s Akka threading system in these types of applications. Play 2 is optimized out-of-the-box for HTTP requests which don’t contain blocking calls (i.e. asynchronous). Most database-driven apps in Java use synchronous calls via JDBC so Play 2 needs a bit of extra configuration to tune Akka for these types of requests.

Dynamically Rendering GitHub Files in Web Pages

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 19:15:03 +0000

You know how you can easily embed GitHub Gists into a webpage? I’ve always wanted that for any file on GitHub. I post a lot of code on my blog and it’s always tedious and error-prone having to copy and paste the code. I’d rather be able to dynamically render a specific version of a file hosted on GitHub. So I created a little JavaScript jQuery plugin called github-files that pulls blobs from GitHub. Those blobs can then be rendered client-side and optionally syntax highlighted.

Play 2 Scala Console on Heroku

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:27:29 +0000

I’ve been working on a Play 2 application that I’ll be using for the Grails vs Play Smackdown at ÜberConf next week. The app is running in production on Heroku but since I don’t have an admin UI yet, I needed a quick and easy way to create a new entity. I could have gone straight to the database but thought it would be better to run Play 2’s Scala Console on Heroku and then just run some arbitrary Scala code. The Scala Console in Play 2 is really just the Scala REPL in SBT but it allows you to interact with a Play application.

Webinar: Social Enterprise Java Apps on Heroku

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:02:36 +0000

Tomorrow, May 30th, I will be co-hosting a webinar about Social Enterprise Java Apps on Heroku. The webinar will be at both 2:00 p.m. GMT and 10:00 a.m. PDT. Register at: http://www.developerforce.com/events/webinars/2012-05-30/registration.php?d=70130000000sW7g

Here is the description:

In this webinar you will learn how to build Social Enterprise applications using Salesforce.com, Heroku, and Java. Through live coding and demonstrations you will learn how to instantly deploy and scale Java apps on the cloud with Heroku. You will also learn how to integrate those applications with Salesforce.com and Force.com through REST.

Graphs in the Cloud: Spring + Neo4j on Heroku

Mon, 14 May 2012 21:19:50 +0000

Last week I hosted a webinar about running Java apps on Heroku that use the Spring Framework and the [Neo4j graph database][1]. Here is the recording of that webinar:

In the webinar I began by deploying a copy of the Spring MVC + Hibernate template app from [heroku.com/java][2] on Heroku. Then I made a few modifications to the app to switch the persistence from Hibernate / JPA to Neo4j. You can get the [full source code on GitHub][3].

Play 2 Java Tutorial

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:57:02 +0000

Update: This tutorial is a bit old. For more up-to-date tutorials see: https://www.playframework.com/documentation/2.3.x/Tutorials

I’ve created a Play 2 Tutorial and posted it on GitHub! The tutorial covers how to:

Each section has a corresponding branch in git so you can diff against my version to see if you’ve done everything correctly. Right now this is just for Play 2 with Java and Ebean but I’m working on doing this for Play 2 with Scala as well.

Heroku, Java, Play and Neo4j Presos: Denver JUG, Atlanta JUG, London Flash UG & Webinar

Mon, 07 May 2012 21:16:54 +0000

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be doing two Java User Group presentations, a Flash Platform User Group presentation and one Webinar. Hope to see you at one of these events:

Wednesday May 9 - Denver Java User Group:

Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps in the Cloud

Thursday May 10 - Webinar hosted by Neo4j:
Graphs in the Cloud: Neo4j and Heroku

Tuesday May 15 - Atlanta Java User Group:
Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud

Thursday May 24 - London Flash Platform User Group:
HTML5 Apps in Java & Scala with the Play Framework
Deploying Apps on the Cloud with Heroku

Heroku Presos: Denver Open Source UG and Future Insights Live

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:48:14 +0000

This week I’ll be doing two presentation about Heroku:

Tuesday May 1 - 5:30 PM at the Denver Open Source Users Group:
Heroku Cloud Computing Platform

Thursday May 3 - 12:25pm at Future Insights Live (Las Vegas):
Client/Server Apps with HTML5 and Java

Hope to see you there!

WebJars in Spring MVC

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:54:20 +0000

Last week I announced the WebJars project that allows you to specify your web libraries (JavaScript, CSS, etc) as dependencies in your Java web applications. With some help from Jeremy Grelle I was able to get a simple WebJars Spring MVC example working.

First you will need to add the WebJars repository to your build. For Maven, just add the following to your “pom.xml” build file:

<repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>webjars</id>
            <url>http://webjars.github.com/m2</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

Then add a WebJar dependency, like Twitter Bootstrap:

Introducing WebJars – Web Libraries as Managed Dependencies

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:46:25 +0000

Update: I’ve created a Spring MVC WebJars example.
Update 2: Ukrainian translation here - http://softdroid.net/vvedennya-webjars by Eclipse Android.
Update 3: WebJars.org has been officially launched! Learn more.

Our web apps are using more and more web libraries like jQuery, Backbone.js and Twitter Bootstrap. The traditional way to use those libraries is to locate & download the JavaScript and CSS source then just copy it into a project. To me this resembles how we used to just copy JAR files into a project’s WEB-INF/lib dir. But why not do with web libraries like we now do with Java libraries and specify them as managed dependencies? This allows us to declaratively set the version, use a consistent version across an application, and easily deal with transitive dependencies. Then we just need web frameworks that can serve static assets from JAR files and we are good to go! Luckily Play 2 and Dropwizard both have out-of-the-box support for this. So I decided to give it a try…

Heroku for Java, Scala & Play at the Houston JUG and NFJS Virginia

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:25:30 +0000

This week I will be presenting about Running Java, Scala, and Play apps on Heroku at the Houston JUG and at No Fluff Just Stuff in Reston, VA:

Houston JUG - Wednesday April 25 at 6:30pm
Running Java and Play! Apps on the Cloud

NFJS - Reston, VA - Saturday April 28 at 3:15pm
Running Java and Scala Apps on Heroku

Hope to see you there!

Play Framework 2 & HTML5 on Heroku at Philly ETE and Devoxx Paris

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:49:00 +0000

Over the next few weeks I’ll be doing a few presentations about Java, Scala, Play Framework 2, HTML5, and Heroku:

Wednesday April 11 @ 11:30am - Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise (Philedephia, PA) - HTML5 Apps in Java & Scala with the Play Framework
Wednesday April 18 @ 13:30 - Devoxx (Paris, France) - Developing, Deploying and Scaling in the Cloud with Play
Thursday April 19 @ 14:30 - Devoxx (Paris, France) - Client/Server Apps with HTML5 and Java

Java on Heroku at NH JUG and DevNexus 2012

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:27:06 +0000

This week I’ll will be doing a few presentations about running Java and Play apps on Heroku:

Portsmouth, NH on Tuesday March 20 @ 6:30pm - Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud
DevNexus in Atlanta, GA on Wednesday March 21 @ 2:30pm - Introduction to Heroku
DevNexus in Atlanta, GA on Thursday March 22 @ 2:30pm - Intro to Play Framework

Hope to see you there!

Screencast: Java Template Apps on Heroku

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:55:57 +0000

Today Heroku launched a new way to get started deploying Java apps on the cloud. There are four different template apps you can start with including a Spring + Hibernate + Tomcat app, a Containerless Jetty app, a Play! app, and a JAX-RS app. Pick a template and with a few clicks a copy of the template will be deployed on Heroku - just for you! Get started at:

heroku.com/java

Here is a screencast that walks through the steps to deploy a new Java template app on Heroku, then setup SSH authentication (for pulling and pushing code with git), pull the code into Eclipse, make a change, and push the changes back to Heroku. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Java on Heroku Next Week at Cloudstock 2012

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:09:01 +0000

Next week in San Francisco at Cloudstock 2012 I will be doing a presentation called “Introduction to Heroku: Building Next Generation Apps”. Here is the session description:

Many emerging technology trends like PaaS, HTML5, mobile apps, API-driven development, and continuous deployment are changing the way we build and deliver software. Heroku is a polyglot cloud application platform at the forefront of these trends. This introductory session will teach you what Heroku is and how you can use it to build next-generation apps that make software delivery more efficient and scalable.

Tutorial: Play Framework 2 with Scala, Anorm, JSON, CoffeeScript, jQuery & Heroku

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:57:59 +0000

Play Framework 2 RC2 has been released and it is quickly becoming a mature and productive way to build modern web apps. Lets walk through building a quick app with Play 2, Scala, Anorm, JSON, CoffeeScript, and jQuery. Once the app works locally we will deploy it on the cloud with Heroku. (Note: This is the Play 2 + Scala version of my Play 1 + Java tutorial.) You can grab the completed source from GitHub.

Heroku Java UG Tour: Seattle, Gainesville, and Orlando

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:39:24 +0000

My Java User Group Tour continues this week in Seattle, Gainesville, and Orlando. I’ll be presenting about how to run Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on the Cloud. Check out the JUG sites for details:

Hope to see you there!

Webapp Runner – Apache Tomcat as a Dependency

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:57:32 +0000

John Simone, a fellow co-worker at Heroku, has created webapp-runner which provides an easy way to specify Tomcat as a dependency of your app and launch Tomcat. This is useful for making it simple to test your app locally but it also helps to avoid issues stemming from differences in runtime environments.

Here is how to use it from a Maven pom.xml build:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>hellojavawebapprunner</artifactId>
    <name>hellojavawebapprunner</name>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>3.0.1</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.github.jsimone</groupId>
            <artifactId>webapp-runner</artifactId>
            <version>7.0.22</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
                    <webappDirectory>${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}</webappDirectory>
                    <warName>${project.artifactId}</warName>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.4</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals><goal>copy-dependencies</goal></goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <includeArtifactIds>webapp-runner</includeArtifactIds>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Then just run the Maven build:

Video: Java, Play Framework & Scala Apps on Heroku

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:25:45 +0000

If you haven’t been able to make it to one of my Java User Group talks about Heroku but you want to see the presentation, then you are in luck! The Portland JUG recorded my talk on Running Java, Play Framework, and Scala Apps on the Cloud with Heroku. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks!

Video: Spring Roo and Grails Apps on the Cloud

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:45:19 +0000

At SpringOne 2GX I did a presentation about running Spring Roo (really Spring anything) and Grails apps on the cloud with Heroku. A video recording of my session has been posted on InfoQ.

If you want to try out Spring Roo or Grails on Heroku then one way is to deploy a copy of one of the demos I showed. I’ve created a little app that makes that easy. Just go to java.herokuapp.com and select a demo then enter your email address (your Heroku username) and click Go! A copy of the demo will be deployed for you on Heroku and then you will see instructions on how to get started with it. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Deploy Containerless Tapestry Apps on Heroku

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:55:42 +0000

Recently I spent some time with Howard Lewis Ship, creator of the Apache Tapestry web framework. Howard is a technical rock star so it was really fun to sit down with him and hack on some code. Our goal was to make it easy for people to run their Tapestry apps on the cloud with Heroku. You can run anything on Heroku so there are a variety of ways to run Tapestry apps on Heroku. We wanted to put together something that helps Tapestry users run their apps in the most optimal way. What we came up with is available in Howard’s tapx-heroku package on GitHub. Lets walk through what it does.

Run Grails on the Cloud with Heroku

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:27:17 +0000

Support for Grails on Heroku was recently announced and I’d like to walk you through the steps to create a simple Grails app and then deploy it on the cloud with Heroku. Before you get started install Grails 2.0.0, install the Heroku toolbelt, install git, and signup for a Heroku.com account. Don’t worry, you won’t need to enter a credit card to give this a try because Heroku gives you 750 free dyno hours per application, per month. (Wondering what a “dyno” is? Check out: How Heroku Works) Let’s get started.

Next Gen Web Apps with Scala, BlueEyes, and MongoDB

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:48:35 +0000

Web application architecture is in the midst of a big paradigm shift. Since the inception of the web we’ve been treating the browser like a thin client. Apps just dump markup to the browser which is then rendered. Every interaction requires a request back to the server which then returns more logic-less markup to the browser. In this model our web applications are server applications. There are certainly advantages to this model - especially when the markup consumers don’t have the capabilities to do anything more (or have inconsistent capabilities).

Heroku at Jfokus and Spring I/O 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:11:35 +0000

In just a few weeks I’ll be over in Europe presenting about Heroku at two fantastic Java conferences. First up is Jfokus in Stockholm! On February 14 at 20:00 I will be leading a Cloud Conversations BoF. Then on February 15 at 11:10 I will be speaking about how to “git push” Java & Play! Apps to the Cloud. This will be my first time speaking at Jfokus and I’m really excited because I’ve heard such great things.

Try the New Play Framework Heroku Plugin

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:32:36 +0000

I just published a [Heroku Plugin for Play Framework][1]. Right now it just deploys a Play app to Heroku. Try it out:

[Signup for a Heroku account][2]
Install the Heroku plugin locally: ```bash $ play install heroku


  3. Create a Play (1.2.3 or 1.2.4) app: ```bash
$ play new foo --with heroku

Or if you already have an existing Play app, add the follow line to the _conf/dependencies.yml_ file and then run "play deps -sync":

```yaml

play -> heroku 0.2


  4. Deploy the app: ```bash
$ play heroku:deploy foo

You should see something like:

```bash

~ _ _ ~ _ __ | | __ _ _ | | ~ | ‘ | |/ ’ | || || ~ | /||_|__ () ~ || |__/
~ ~ play! 1.2.4, http://www.playframework.org ~ ~ Deploying app to Heroku Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 8000 Project directory: /home/jamesw/Desktop/foo Read Heroku API key from /home/jamesw/.heroku/credentials Created new ssh key pair (heroku_rsa) in: /home/jamesw/.ssh Added the heroku_rsa.pub ssh public key to your Heroku account Created a .git directory for your project Added and committed all of the local changes to the git repo Created app: cold-night-1511 http://cold-night-1511.herokuapp.com/ Added git remote: git@heroku.com:cold-night-1511.git Deploying application via git push Application deployed ~ App Deployed

Java on Heroku at CinJUG, Detroit JUG, and MongoDB Boulder

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:46:17 +0000

Over the next few days I’ll be presenting about Java, Play Framework, and Scala on Heroku at a couple Java User Groups and a MongoDB conference:

Hope to see you there!

Tutorial & Screencast: Java on Heroku with Eclipse

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:16:23 +0000

UPDATE: There is a new and better way to get started with Java on Heroku using Eclipse. For details check out:
Screencast: Java Template Apps on Heroku

The rest of this post is now legacy stuff.

I recorded a screencast and put together some instructions on how to try out Java on Heroku using just a web browser and Eclipse. First, check out the screencast:

Just Released the S3Blobs Play Framework Module for Amazon S3

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:30:26 +0000

I’ve just posted the first release of the S3Blobs Play Framework Module. This module makes it easy to upload and download files from Amazon S3 from a JPA entity in a Play Framework Java application. This module is based on a POC that I did a few months ago, the JPA stuff from Tim Kral, and the modularization done by Roderik van der Veer. For more details on how to use the module check out the documentation, my tutorial (slightly out of date now), and the source code. This makes it really easy to save file uploads to an external system when running Play! apps on Heroku. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Java, Play! & Scala on Heroku – This Week in San Diego, Mountain View, and Albany

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:30:50 +0000

This week I’ll presenting at three Java User Groups about Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud:

Hope to see you there!

Heroku JUG Tour: Boulder, Phoenix, & Portland

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:38:44 +0000

For the next wave of the Heroku Java User Group Tour I will be speaking about running Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on the cloud in these three wonderful places:

I hope to see you there!

Tutorial: Play Framework, JPA, JSON, jQuery, & Heroku

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:20:42 +0000

UPDATE: This tutorial is for Play 1.x (an old version). Check out my Play 2 Tutorial if you want to get started with the latest stuff. (Thanks to John Borys for pointing this out.)

If you are a Java developer then you really need to give Play Framework a try. It is really refreshing to take a few minutes, step out of the legacy-feeling world of traditional Java web app development and into something modern and fun. I want to walk you through a very simple tutorial where we will build a web application with Play Framework. The application will use JPA for persistence and expose access to the data through a JSON over HTTP interface. The client-side of the application will be built with jQuery. Lets get started.

Using MongoDB for a Java Web App’s HttpSession

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:02:21 +0000

Since the web’s inception we’ve been using it as a glorified green screen. In this model all web application interactions and the state associated with those interactions, is handled by the server. This model is a real pain to scale. Luckily the model is shifting to more of a Client/Server approach where the UI state moves to the client (where it should be). But for many of today’s applications we still have to deal with server-side state. Typically that state is just stored in memory. It’s fast but if we need more than one server (for failover or load-balancing) then we usually need to replicate that state across our servers. To keep web clients talking to the same server (usually for performance and consistency) our load-balancers have implemented sticky sessions. Session replication and sticky sessions are really just a by-product of putting client state information in memory. Until we all move to stateless web architectures we need to find more scalable and maintainable ways to handle session state.

Heroku Java User Group Tour: Columbus and Orange County

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:38:37 +0000

The Heroku Java User Group Tour continues next week:

The sessions will teach you how to deploy Java, Play! and Scala apps on the cloud with Heroku. Hope to see you there!

Heroku Preso from Devoxx 2011

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:05:03 +0000

As expected… Devoxx 2011 rocked! Such a fun conference with top notch sessions and people. I presented a session on how to deploy Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on Heroku. Matt Raible did a great (and very thorough) write-up on my session. Thanks Matt! Here are my slides:

There was also some hot news at Devoxx… Play Framework 2 is the official web framework in the Typesafe Stack! And Heroku already supports Play 2! Awesome stuff.

Using Apache Tomcat on Heroku

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:20:43 +0000

One great thing about Heroku is the freedom to use any APIs and any application server. On Heroku you bring your application server with you. The easiest way to do this is by specifying your app server as a dependency of your application. This allows for maximum control and avoids the pain associated with developer and production environments using different versions of the container.

Most of the articles that have been written about running Java on Heroku use embedded Jetty since it’s lightweight and easy to specify as a dependency. But you can also use Apache Tomcat in the same way. There is now a great article on the Heroku Dev Center that walks you through how to do it. Check it out:

Akka, Heroku, sbt and BlueEyes at the SF Scala UG

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:04:00 +0000

Next Monday at the San Francisco Scala User Group I will be co-presenting about Akka, Heroku, sbt and BlueEyes with Mike Slinn - a long time friend and mentor. In the presentation we will be talking about a building client/server apps with HTML5 on the client and Scala & JSON services on the server. We will also show how to deploy these applications on the cloud with Heroku. Hope to see you there!

Heroku at Devoxx 2011

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:53:29 +0000

Devoxx is one of my favorite conferences of the year so I’m lucky to be presenting there again this year. This Thursday at noon I’ll be presenting about Heroku and how to deploy Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on the cloud. Hopefully see you there!

Intro to Java & Play! on Heroku in Mountain View

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:14:38 +0000

On November 10, 2011 Sandeep Bhanot and I will be presenting an Introduction to Java & Play Framework on Heroku at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View. Space is almost gone, so register now! Hope to see you there.

Java, Play! & Scala on Heroku at the Dallas JUG

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:18:04 +0000

On Wednesday November 9, 2011 I’ll be presenting “Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud” at the Dallas Java User Group. If you are in the Dallas area then I hope to see you there!

Video: Play Framework Scala Apps on the Cloud

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:38:10 +0000

Last week I posted the steps to getting started with Play Framework and Scala. Here is a video that walks through those steps in real-time:

Let me know if you have any questions.

Setting Up Play Framework Apps in IntelliJ IDEA

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:43:33 +0000

Update: I’ve posted a new video showing how to create and run Play2 apps in IntelliJ.

JetBrains just announced that they have posted a new EAP release of IntelliJ IDEA that supports Play Framework apps! Here is a quick video I recorded that shows how to get IntelliJ setup with a Play app:

Thanks JetBrains! This is awesome stuff!

Running Play Framework + Scala Apps on Heroku

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:26:28 +0000

Building Play Framework apps with Scala is all the rage right now. And for good reason… It’s never been easier to build and deploy JVM-based web apps! Lets walk through how to build a Play app with Scala and then deploy it on the cloud with Heroku.

Step 1) Install the Play Framework (make sure you have at least version 1.2.3)

Step 2) Install the Play Scala module:

play install scala

Step 3) Create a new Play app with Scala support:

Learning Scala: Function Literals

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:16:13 +0000

I’ve gradually been learning Scala over the past few months and I really have been enjoying it. For me Scala is like Shakespeare. It seems familiar and totally foreign at the same time. I don’t enjoy Shakespeare plays nearly as much as someone who has taken the time to learn the language of Shakespeare. Some have interpreted Scala being “familiar yet totally foreign” as Scala being “hard” but I’d say it’s just different. With Scala there is probably more about programming that I need to unlearn than to learn. My perspectives on programming languages have been shaped by the ones I’ve used most (Java, ActionScript, etc). And now my perspecives are being reshaped. It might take some time and work but I believe that using Scala will soon be very enjoyable for me.

Heroku Java User Group Tour Part 1: Los Angeles and Salt Lake City

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:14:02 +0000

This week I’m starting a Java User Group tour where I’ll be travelling to JUGs around the US (or maybe world). On the tour I’ll be giving a talk about Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps on the Cloud. Here is the description:

Heroku is a Polyglot Cloud Application Platform that makes it easy to deploy Java, Play! and Scala apps on the cloud. Deployment is as simple as doing a “git push”. This session will teach you how to instantly deploy and scale Java, Play! and Scala apps on Heroku.

Heroku is Hiring

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:39:10 +0000

It’s been four months since I started working at Heroku as a Developer Evangelist. Now it is clear to me that I got really lucky. Heroku is a top-notch place to work. The product is sexy. The people are all rock stars. Heroku is owned by Salesforce.com so there is the stability of a large company but the start-up culture remains in place.

Heroku is looking to hire lots of people (engineers, marketing, etc) but of particular interest to my readers might be the Java Developer Evangelist position. Come work with me to help educate Java developers about Heroku!

Getting Started with Scala on Heroku

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:24:32 +0000

Over the past year I’ve been gradually learning Scala and I think it’s fantastic! So I’m incredibly excited that Scala now runs on Heroku! Of course you can use the standard Java on Heroku / Maven method of running Scala on Heroku. But as of today you can also use sbt (the Scala Build Tool) to run Scala apps on Heroku. If you are new to Heroku, it is a Polyglot Cloud Application Platform. Put very simply:

Java Concurrency with Akka: Composing Futures

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:45:22 +0000

I’ve been intrigued by Akka for a while but finally I was able to take it for a spin. The first thing I wanted to learn was how to compose Futures. Composing Futures provides a way to do two (or more) things at the same time and then wait until they are done. Typically in Java this would be done with a <del datetime="2011-09-23T22:23:58+00:00">CyclicBarrier</del> ExecutorService. ~~But setting up the code to manage a CyclicBarrier is challenging.~~ (UPDATE: Turns out it’s not very challenging, I just didn’t know how to do it. I’m new to concurrency in Java and didn’t find much on this stuff - probably because I didn’t even know what to search for.) So I put together a quick little demo that shows how to do the same thing with Futures in Akka.

Video: Running Java Web Apps on the Cloud

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:57:30 +0000

Here is a quick screencast that shows how to instantly deploy Java web applications on the cloud with Heroku.

If you want more than a quick introduction check out a recording of my presentation at JavaZone. And visit heroku.com/java for more details on how to get started running Java apps on Heroku.

Flex AOP and Puzzlers at Flash Camp Italy

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:02:32 +0000

Next week I’ll be speaking at the Flex Camp in Rimini, Italy. On September 23, Mike Labriola and I will be doing two sessions. First is “Planet of the AOPs” where we will show how Aspect Oriented Programming can be implemented in Flex using runtime bytecode modification. Mike and I will also be doing a little “Flex Puzzlers” session where you will discover some very peculiar things about Flex and Flash Player. It’s going to be a blast and I hope to see you there! Also, there will be a raffle for a copy of Creative Suite 5.5 and a Playbook. So go sign up NOW!

Sending Play Framework File Uploads to Amazon S3

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:00:39 +0000

UPDATE: I’ve released a S3 Play Module based on this project.

A couple of questions [1, 2] on StackOverflow.com led me to look into how we can send file uploads in a Play Framework application to Amazon S3 instead of the local disk. For applications running on Heroku this is especially important because the local disk is not persistent. Persistent disk storage makes it hard to scale apps. Instead of using the file system, it’s better to use an external service which is independent of the web tier.

Java and Play Framework on the Cloud at JavaZone

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:22:10 +0000

Next week I am speaking in Oslo at JavaZone about deploying Java and Play! Framework apps on the Cloud. I submitted the session before Heroku for Java was available so I had to obfuscate the title and description. If you are at JavaZone then I hope to see you at my “Deploying Apps on Heroku” session!

Getting Started with Play Framework on Heroku

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:11:28 +0000

UPDATE: This tutorial is for Play 1.x (an old version). Check out my Play 2 Tutorial if you want to get started with the latest stuff.

Last week Heroku announced that you can now run Java apps on Heroku. Today Heroku announced that you can also easily run Play Framework apps on Heroku! Here’s a quick guide to getting started with Play! on Heroku:

Install the heroku command line client on Linux, Mac, or Windows.

Heroku Adds Java Support

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:23:53 +0000

Today Heroku announced that Java is now supported on the Heroku Cloud Application Platform! This is incredibly exciting news and I’m very lucky to be a Heroku for Java Developer Evangelist!

Joining salesforce.com and jumping into the the Java Cloud space holds some nostalgia for me. When I began using Java in 1997 I was working at an ISP in Denver. We did the regular web hosting thing, but when the first Java Servlet engines (like Java Web Server 1.0) came out, I created the “wantjava.com” hosting service. Things were really nasty at first. We could only run one instance of the JWS on a server so I came up with a really bad way to do “multi-tenancy”. I setup a cron job to rsync the customers’ .class files into the server’s webapp and then restart the server. Customers had to email me to get a servlet added to the web.xml file. Uggg… I feel like I need to go to confession for this. But it worked and as the Servlet containers improved we quickly migrated to a more sustainable model.

WAR-less Java Web Apps

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:59:30 +0000

Have you ever thought about why in Java we package up web apps into WAR files (or WAR directory structures)? It certainly is a convenient way to move an application and its dependencies from one place to another. But wouldn’t it be nice if everything could just stay in its original location and there wouldn’t be any moving of files around? Wouldn’t it also be nice if you specified your required version of Jetty or Tomcat just like you do with every other dependency? The WAR-less approach is one that is catching on as emerging Java web frameworks like Play! ditch the WAR files. With standard Java web apps we can also ditch the WAR files by simply launching an embedded Jetty or Tomcat server. Let’s give this a try and see how it goes.

Dreamforce 2011

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:15:24 +0000

I’m very excited to be presenting at Dreamforce (salesforce.com’s anual conference) this year! On Thursday, September 1, from 1:15 pm to 2:15 pm I will be presenting:

Developing Java Cloud Apps

The cloud makes it easy to deploy highly scalable apps in an instant. This session will walk you through the steps to build your first Java app for the cloud. You’ll also learn best practices for building mission-critical and horizontally scalable Java cloud apps.

Setup Play Framework with Scala in IntelliJ

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:13:31 +0000

UPDATE: This is only for Play 1.x with Scala. Getting Play 2 projects (Java or Scala) working in IDEA is now as easy running “play idea” and then opening the project.

Update 2: I’ve posted a new video showing how to create and run Play2 apps in IntelliJ.

Yesterday at the [Programming Summer Camp][1] a group of us were working together to learn the [Play Framework][2]. Once we were able to get the basics working we wanted to get everything working in [IntelliJ IDEA][3]. Due to a lack of good documentation on the subject things did not go smoothly until we figured out the right “magical incantations”. We did eventually get it working so I wanted to document the steps we took.

Architectural Evolution: From Middleware to The Cloud

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:10:22 +0000

You’ve heard it said that “all things old are new again.” That statement can certainly be applied to the current Cloud hype. But each time the old becomes new it gets a bit better because of what was learned the last time around. If we look back ten years at enterprise application development in Java things were quite different than they are today. EJB was “the way” to build scalable systems from a vast abundance of components. But things didn’t work out as well as the vendors planned.

Programming Summer Camp 2011

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:14:16 +0000

Over the past few years I’ve attended a bunch of geek/coder events in the Colorado Mountains. It always surprises me how much I can learn by getting away, being around some really smart people, and writing code with them. So I’m incredibly excited to be attending The Programming Summer Camp 2011 this summer in Crested Butte, Colorado!

At the summer camp you can choose which campsite to hangout in. Or if you want, you can create your own campsite! I’ll probably spend most of my time in the Scala campsite. But I look forward to mingling in some of the other campsites as well.

Getting Started with Node.js on The Cloud

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:21:22 +0000

In my new job at salesforce.com I’m incredibly exited about getting into Heroku, a Platform as a Service provider / Cloud Application Platform. In a future blog post I’ll provide more details on what Heroku is and how it works. But if you are like me the first thing you want to do when learning a new technology is to take it for a test drive. I decided to take my Heroku test drive using the recently announced Node.js support. I’m new to Node.js, but at least I know JavaScript. Heroku also offers Ruby / Rails support but I don’t know Ruby - yet. So let me walk you through the steps I took (and that you can follow) to get started with Node.js on the Heroku Cloud.

Seattle Force.com Developer Meetup on June 22

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:58:34 +0000

UPDATE: This event has been canceled! Sorry!

Next week I’ll be presenting in Seattle at my first Force.com Developer Meetup! It starts at 6pm on Wednesday, June 22. My session will be on Flex Mobile Development. Other sessions include Force.com Platform Basics, Native iOS Development using JavaScript, and a Force.com Hands-On Lab. It’s going to be a fun evening, so if you are in the Seattle area, then I hope to see you there!

New Adventures on The Cloud

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:47:25 +0000

When I started doing professional software development almost 15 years ago I was focused on the server-side. I started with Perl / CGI web apps - some of which are still in production today. Then I dove into Java web development with Java Web Server 1.0, Struts, JBoss, Tomcat and many other game changing technologies.

In 2004 I started getting into Macromedia Flex. I was amazed at how easy it was to retrieve and nicely render data from a Java back-end. In 2005 I began evangelizing Flex + Java. Following the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe, Flex has really flourished. Adobe Flex is now the dominant RIA technology and it has been so fun to be a part of that!

Extending AIR for Android

Wed, 11 May 2011 15:06:36 +0000

*** The following is totally unsupported by Adobe ***

*** UPDATE: Adobe has officially added native extensions to AIR. I highly recommend you use that approach instead of mine. ***

Adobe AIR provides a consistent platform for desktop and mobile apps. While consistency is very important there are times when developers need to extend beyond the common APIs. This article will walk you through how to integrate AIR for Android applications with other native APIs and functionality in the Android SDK. It covers three common use cases for native extensibility: System Notifications, Widgets, and Application Licensing.

Introducing Mixing Loom – Runtime ActionScript Bytecode Modification

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:54:03 +0000

At this year’s 360|Flex conference in Denver, Mike Labriola and I unveiled a new project we’ve been working on called Mixing Loom. Our presentation was called “Planet of the AOPs” because Mixing Loom lays the foundation for true Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) on the Flash Platform. Mixing Loom provides Flex and ActionScript applications the hooks they need to do bytecode modification either before runtime or at runtime. Through bytecode modification an application can apply a behavior across hierarchies of objects. There are a number of behaviors in a typical Flex application (such as logging, security, application configuration, accessibility, and styling) that could be represented as Aspects. Today these behaviors must either be included in every class that needs them or included way down the object hierarchy (i.e. UIComponent). With Mixing Loom a compiled SWF can be modified (applying necessary behaviors) after it’s been compiled or as it’s starting up.

Using an Embedded WSDL with Flex’s WebService API

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:42:53 +0000

Recently I was helping a customer figure out how to use an embedded WSDL with Flex’s WebService API. One scenario in which this is needed is when the actual WSDL is not available at runtime. In this case the application must contain the WSDL instead of request it at runtime. The Flex WebService API today only supports loading the WSDL over the network at runtime. Beginning in Flash Builder 4 the Service wizard generate code that internally use the WebService API. So no matter how you integrate with a SOAP Web Service in Flex, you need the WSDL accessible via a URL at runtime. This wasn’t possible for the customer I was working with so we figured out a way to actually embed the WSDL into the application. Here is what we did…

Tour de Mobile Flex on iOS

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:03:04 +0000

Flex support for iOS apps is coming in June 2011!!! Here’s a little sneak peak of the Tour de Mobile Flex app running on iOS:

These are exciting times for developers! With Flex we will be able to use one technology and one code base to build apps for iOS, Android, Playbook, Windows, Mac, Linux, IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc! Fun times!

Building Mobile Apps with Flex 4.5

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:54:36 +0000

Now that Flex 4.5 has officially been announced I wanted to show just how easy it is to start building mobile apps with Flex:

Very fun stuff! Let me know what you think.

Next week in Denver: 360|Flex and Flex Camp 2011

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:06:37 +0000

Next week I’ll be presenting at two great Flex events here in Denver, Colorado. On Sunday April 10th, Greg Wilson and I will be presenting an “Intro to Building Mobile Apps” at 360|Flex. Then on Tuesday April 12 Mike Labriola and I will leave the world of Flex bewildered and befuddled when we present “Planet of the AOPs” (also at 360|Flex). And on Thursday April 14 I’ll be presenting “Building Cross-Device Apps with Flex” at the Denver Flex Camp. It’s going to be a really fun week and I hope to see you there!

Planet of the AOPs at 360|Flex

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:09:06 +0000

This year at 360|Flex in Denver I’ll be co-presenting a session with Mike Labriola called “Planet of the AOPs”. What is the Planet of the AOPs? Let me give you a little hint…

public class Foo {
  private function getPrivateBar():String {
    return "private bar";
  }
}

var foo:Foo = new Foo();
foo['getPrivateBar']();

Yup! It’s gonna be fun! The session will be on Tuesday April 12th at 2:50pm. Hope to see you there!

Also, Mike and I are doing a 360|Flex speaker chat today at 11am (MDT).

My Upcoming Flex Sessions in Atlanta – DevNexus and Atlanta Flex User Group

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:53:04 +0000

In a few weeks I’ll be speaking in Atlanta at DevNexus and at the Atlanta Flex User Group. On March 21, 2011 at DevNexus I have two sessions:

On March 22, 2011 at the Atlanta Flex User Group I will be presenting about Flex 4.5 - The Non-Mobile New Features.

I hope to see you at DevNexus and at the Atlanta Flex User Group!

Integrating Flex and Java EE with JBoss

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:23:29 +0000

Flex and Java have always fit together very nicely. Connecting from Flex to a Java back-end is pretty straightforward whether you are using plain old Java beans, Spring beans, or EJB session beans. I’ve created a video and some sample code that shows you how to connect Flex to a Java EE system using BlazeDS. This video walks though a real-time collaborative Whiteboard application that runs in the browser, on the desktop, and on mobile devices. Check out the video and let me know what you think.

Testing Flex Apps with FlexMonkey Reloaded

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:20:11 +0000

Whether or not you use a tool to test your Flex apps, you are repeatedly testing your application. Doing this by hand is a pain: start the app, click through some stuff, verify the result is what you expected, makes some changes to your code and then do it all again. The open source FlexMonkey tool automates that process so you don’t have to keep doing those steps manually. FlexMonkey works with Flex applications that run in the browser (Flash Player) as well as on the desktop (Adobe AIR). Jon Rose has just finished a complete overhaul of FlexMonkey that makes automating your Flex testing process uber-simple and much more robust than the previous version.

Flex Jam February 2011 – Learn Flex in Ann Arbor

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:35:19 +0000

In a few weeks I’ll be in Ann Arbor, MI to lead a Flex Jam hosted by SRT Solutions. Code Jams give you the opportunity to learn by doing. So bring your laptop and come join us in Ann Arbor!

Here is the full description of the event:

Join SRT Solutions as we host James Ward, Adobe Flex evangelist, from Tuesday, February 15 through Thursday February 17 for 3 interactive days of Flex (and AIR) development and exploration. Jams, pioneered by Bruce Eckel and modeled after sessions that bring musicians together to create something new and interesting, take learning beyond the lecture/lab process. The lecture/lab learning works best for groups where everyone is at the same level. By bringing together developers of varying skill levels with a technology, the Jam process allows everyone to work at their own level.

Building Cross-Device Apps with Flex and Spring at the Detroit JUG

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:48:34 +0000

On February 15, 2011 I’ll be presenting at the Detroit Java User Group about Building Cross-Device Apps with Flex and Spring. If you live in the Detroit area then I hope to see you there! If not, then talk to your local Java User Group leader about having me come and speak.

Here is the abstract for the talk:

Today, users want apps in the browser, on their desktop, phone, tablet, and TV. Reusing code across all of these devices is now crucial for developers. By combining Flex for the UI with Spring and Hibernate for the back-end, developers can build apps that work on a variety of devices including PCs, Android phones / tablets, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, iPhones, and iPads. This session will walk developers through the steps for creating these cross-device apps with Flex and Java.

Integrating Flex/Flash with HTML5 APIs

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:36:43 +0000

Beyond the media hype about Flash versus HTML5 exists the reality of coexistence and cooperation. This coexistence and cooperation makes the web a better place. When developers combine the strengths of Flash with the strengths of HTML, users get the best possible experiences on the web.

Both HTML and Flash are important foundations that Adobe builds its products on. Here’s a little secret about Adobe’s business model… When new versions of those platforms come out, so do new versions of the tools for building on them. And guess what Adobe makes money on… Tools. So it is true that Adobe loves Flash AND HTML5. :)

P2P in Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet Flex Apps

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:16:02 +0000

Using the open source Flex SDK, developers can easily build desktop, mobile, and tablet applications that use Peer to Peer (P2P) communication. I’ve created a video that walks through demos and code illustrating how to use the P2P APIs in Adobe AIR applications. Check it out:

Grab the code for the demos in the video from github:

P2Pong
P2Hancock (Signature capture over P2P)

Just as the video shows, it’s incredibly easy to use the P2P APIs. Here is a quick walk through. First create a new NetConnection that is connected to “rtmfp:” like so:

Dreamforce 2010 and Cloudstock

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:24:09 +0000

I’ll be speaking at Dreamforce again this year! I have two sessions that are going to be super fun! First is a panel called “Cloud Mobility: Taking Critical Business Functions With You, Whenever, Wherever” on Wednesday at 3:15 PM. Then on Thursday at 11am I’ll be co-presenting a session on “Building Rich User Interfaces with Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com” with Markus Spohn from Salesforce.com.

Preceding Dreamforce is the Cloudstock event where you can see some other great presentations related to Flex and RIAs. Lee Brimelow will be doing a presentation on “Flex and Flash Platform on the Cloud” that is guaranteed to entertain and educate. There will also be presentations from Nigel Pegg on Real-time Apps and Keith Sutton on “Adobe’s Cloud Offerings for Developers and Enterprises”.

HTML5 Live in New York and RIA Unleashed in Boston

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:33:01 +0000

I’ll be speaking at two great events next week on the East Coast. First up is HTML5 Live in New York on Tuesday November 9th. At HTML5 Live I’ll be talking about “Development Tools for Building HTML5 Content & Applications”. Then on Friday November 12th I’ll be at RIA Unleashed in Boston talking about “Flex 4.5 Hero”. These two events will certainly be enlightening. :) I hope to see you there!

Tour de Mobile Flex – Now Available for Android!

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:04:18 +0000

Tour de Flex was launched at Adobe MAX two years ago. In that time Tour de Flex has become an essential resource for learning Flex. Now that you can build Flex apps for mobile devices with the Flex Hero prerelease we thought we should build a version of Tour de Flex for mobile devices. Using Flex Hero and AIR for Android we’ve created Tour de Mobile Flex! This is a great way to explore the capabilities of Adobe AIR and Flex on mobile devices. Get it from the Android Market by searching for “Tour de Mobile Flex”!

Install Adobe AIR on 64-bit Ubuntu 10.10

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:22:05 +0000

Right now Adobe AIR is only officially available for 32-bit Linux. But it does work on 64-bit Linux with the 32-bit compatibility libraries. There are several ways to install Adobe AIR on Linux. My preferred way on Ubuntu is to use the .deb package. However the .deb package distributed by Adobe can only be installed on 32-bit systems. Good news is that this can be easily fixed! To install the Adobe AIR .deb package on a 64-bit system just follow these steps:

Data Paging in Flex 4

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:33:36 +0000

I know — you’ve heard it from me before — AMF rocks! With AMF you can load massive amounts of data into your Flex (or JavaScript) apps very quickly. This can often obviate the need for paging data. But what if you have lots, and lots, and lots of data? Well then you should use data paging. And here is how…

There is a new collection wrapper class in Flex 4 called “AsyncListView”. The UI data controls in Flex 4 know how to handle an AsyncListView as a dataProvider. The purpose of the AsyncListView is to give you a callback when the underlying list throws an ItemPendingError. The ItemPendingError indicates that an item that the list thinks it has isn’t really there yet. This allows you to then load the data and update the list. In order to throw an ItemPendingError you need to keep track of which items haven’t been loaded and then, when an item is requested that isn’t really there, throw the ItemPendingError. Here is some code from my PagedList implementation:

Mobile Flash & Flex Development

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:39:49 +0000

Just a quick note that tomorrow (October 12, 2010) I’ll be presenting a session at the Rocky Mountain Flash Camp on Mobile Flash & Flex Development. It’s going to be super fun! Hope to see you there.

Webinar Tomorrow: Building Client/Cloud Apps with Flex and Force.com

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:12:26 +0000

I will co-presenting a free webinar tomorrow (September 28th, 2010) on building Client/Cloud Apps with Flex and Force.com. There are two times you can choose from:

September 28, 2010 | 6:00 a.m. PDT | 2:00 p.m. GMT | 6:30 p.m. IST
September 28, 2010 | 10:00 a.m. PDT

This session will walk through how you can get started building applications for the web, desktop, and mobile devices using Flex and Force.com. Salesforce.com and Adobe have worked together on an extension to the Flash Builder tool which enables developers to quickly build applications on top of the Force.com Cloud platform. I hope you can join me tomorrow! Sign up now!

Flex Development on Linux with IntelliJ IDEA

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:11:19 +0000

It’s kinda hard to believe that I’ve been doing Flex development on Linux for over six years now. In that time I’ve tried a few different tools. Vim will always be my favorite but debugging is painful. Flex Builder for Linux worked but lacked major features and commitment from Adobe for continual improvement. Most recently I’ve been using IntelliJ IDEA for Flex development on Linux. It’s been working great! There are a few things I’ve had to get used to but they are doing a great job of providing superb tooling support for Flex. I’ve also been very impressed with the responsiveness from the IntelliJ team in their forums and bug system.

Install Flash Player on 64-bit Linux

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:13:58 +0000

UPDATE: This video was intended to show how to upgrade Flash to a new / experimental version. If you do not have Flash and want to see the video, first switch YouTube to default to HTML5 video and then watch this video on YouTube.

Adobe has just released a preview of a 64-bit Flash Player for Windows, Mac, and Linux! I created a quick video to show Linux users how to install Flash Player on a 64-bit system. Check it out:

My JavaOne 2010 Sessions

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:07:55 +0000

Next week at JavaOne 2010 I’ll be co-presenting two sessions! On Monday Jeremy Grelle and I will present “End-to-End Richness: Integrating Java EE Services to Create Engaging RIAs” at the Hilton San Francisco. Here is the session information:

Session ID: S313939

Abstract: Flex is one of the most widely used tools for building RIAs. But how do you efficiently connect applications to diverse back-end services built on Java EE? The Spring BlazeDS Integration project has emerged as an effective solution for building a lightweight connective tissue for exposing rich Java EE services to a Flex client from any Java Servlet container. Aimed at experienced Java developers who want to make maximum use of their knowledge of Spring and Java EE to build a compelling integrated experience, this session covers:

Ubuntu 10.10 Boots in 8.6 Seconds!

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:30:25 +0000

*** Update: My boot time is now down to 7 seconds! New video coming soon. ***

I just updated to the latest Ubuntu 10.10 desktop and noticed that boot time is now extremely fast! My Intel Core 2 Duo 2.80GHz laptop with an Intel SSD now boots in 8.6 seconds! That is from boot loader all the way to logged in and ready to use! Nice work Ubuntu! Check out the video if you want to see it in action:

Video: Introduction to the New Adobe AIR Launchpad

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:03:01 +0000

I just created a video that walks through the new Adobe AIR Launchpad. The AIR Launchpad is the easiest way to get started building desktop apps with Adobe AIR and Flex. Check it out:

Flex 4 Fun Book by Chet Haase

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:36:29 +0000

My buddy Chet Haase has written an excellent book on Flex 4, called “Flex 4 Fun”. Chet’s humor, insight, and concise examples make this a “fun” way to learn Flex. Artima.com has posted some excerpts from the book to give you an idea of what to expect. Check out these great snippets:

If you are just getting into Flex or haven’t yet made the switch to Flex 4, then this is a great book to buy. You can buy Flex 4 Fun on either artima.com or amazon.com. Have “fun” learning Flex 4! :)

Bay Area Event: Building RIAs using Flash Builder for Force.com

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:05:10 +0000

Salesforce.com is putting on a great event on August 25 in San Mateo, California where you can learn about how to build RIAs on the Cloud with Flash Builder for Force.com. This will be a great opportunity to meet the team that built the tool and learn how to use it! If you can’t make it then check out the article I recently published “Building Client / Cloud Apps with Flash Builder for Force.com”. But if you are in the Bay Area and want to get up to speed quickly on building Client / Cloud apps then Register Now!

How to Define Styles on Skins in Flex 4

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:49:38 +0000

The new component / skin separation in Flex 4 (the Spark Architecture) is pretty nifty. But if you want to add a configurable style to a skin then that style must be defined on the component. For instance if you want to add a backgroundColor style to a Button skin then you need to first create a new Button component with the style on it:

package
{
import spark.components.Button;

[Style(name="backgroundColor", type="uint", format="Color")]
public class SButton extends Button
{

}
}

Then create a new Button skin that uses the style:

Building Client / Cloud Apps with Flash Builder for Force.com

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:15:25 +0000

I have a theory. The majority of people who use enterprise software today use old school Client / Server apps. We’ve been trying to move these apps to the web for more than ten years. The ease of deployment of web apps is a clear motivator. Yet the client capabilities of the plain old web browser have not been sufficient for many apps to make the leap. This is why I love Flex and the Flash Platform. It provides a way to use web technologies and the web deployment model but adds many of the critical things needed for mission critical apps that people use all day long.

Developing Mobile Flash / Flex – Scaling and Zooming

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:29:10 +0000

Mobile development with Flash and Flex is a new frontier, full of new adventures and discoveries. Recently I discovered something that might be useful to you. By default the mobile web browser on my Android 2.2 device scales a web page to make more room to display pages typically built for a desktop profile. Here is what a little test mobile Flex app I built looks like:

Strange! The width and height are larger than the screen resolution. You can fix this by adding the following to the HTML page:

amf.js – A Pure JavaScript AMF Implementation

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:34:06 +0000

I just finished the first version of a new pure JavaScript library for AMF. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but didn’t think it was possible since JavaScript doesn’t have a ByteArray. But then I came across this: “High Performance JavaScript Port of ActionScript’s ByteArray”. That became the basis for amf.js. Before I get into the gory details of how this works, check out some developer eye candy:

http://www.jamesward.com/demos/JSAMF/censusTest.html

Ok, hopefully that worked for you. I’ve tested this in the latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE and they all seem to work. It should also work on your iPad, iPhone, or Android device.

Tour de Flex 2.0 – Nearly 500 Flex Examples!

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:45:42 +0000

Adobe has just launched the new AIR 2 based Tour de Flex version 2.0 which now contains almost 500 Flex examples! The new version has new AIR 2 examples (only available in the AIR version of Tour de Flex) including:

File Promises
Mass Storage Detection
Native Process
Open with default app
Socket Server

Also there are some great examples of the new Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 APIs including:

Gestures
Global Error Handler
Globalization / Internationalization
Microphone access

Those are some great examples but my favorite is still Doug McCune’s Physics Form followed closely by the real-time Tour de Flex Dashboard. :)

Top 10 StackOverflow.com Flex Contributors

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:43:34 +0000

Back in the day the FlexCoders Yahoo! Group was all the rage. It was the place where Flex rock stars like Alex Harui and Doug McCune hung out and helped the community learn Flex. But these days a lot of developers have turned to StackOverflow.com as their primary resource for getting answers to their technical questions. I started using Stack Overflow over a year ago primarily because it makes it easy to follow the conversation around a specific question and quickly identify the right answer. Stack Overflow totally nails what I need as a developer when I have problems and questions. Many Flex rock stars have stepped up and frequently answered questions on Stack Overflow and I wanted to highlight the top 10 contributors to the “Flex” tag.

Flex 4, Hibernate 3, and Spring 3 Integration

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:58:18 +0000

Jon Rose and I have created a new DZone Refcard called Flex 4 and Spring 3 Integration. In the Refcard, we walk you through the steps for building RIAs with Flash Builder 4, Flex 4, BlazeDS 4, Spring 3, the Spring BlazeDS Integration, and Hibernate. Whew! That’s a lot of pieces! The Refcard covers simple Remoting, Flex & Hibernate integration through Spring (all Java annotation driven and using the new data-centric development features in Flash Builder 4), Pub / Sub Messaging, and Flex and Spring Security. We pack a lot into six pages!

Improved Open Source Testing Tools for Flex

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:44:39 +0000

Back in the early days of Flex there wasn’t much for doing unit testing, automated testing, performance testing, etc. Thanks to the community there are now numerous open source testing tools for Flex. Here are some recent updates you should definitely check out if you are building production Flex apps:

It’s very exciting to see these community driven projects continue to improve testing for Flex apps.

Flash Platform and Salesforce.com Webinar and Mobile App

Wed, 26 May 2010 16:59:31 +0000

Client + Cloud technologies have been quickly evolving and maturing. The combination of Flex and Salesforce.com continue to lead the way for next generation Client + Cloud applications. Recently I did a Webinar on The Flash Platform and Salesforce.com with Dave Carroll from Salesforce. If you missed it you can watch the recording to see how you can begin developing Client + Cloud apps. Also watch Jeff Douglas demo an offline case management app he built with Flex and Force.com. Awesome stuff!

Flex on Android in Flash Player and AIR

Fri, 21 May 2010 16:07:18 +0000

This week at the Google I/O conference Adobe announced that a Flash Player 10.1 beta and an Adobe AIR prerelease are now available for Android devices. This is really exciting news for those of us building apps on the Flash Platform because now we can begin building apps in Flex for these mobile devices (and many others coming soon).

Take a look a some of the quick demos I’ve built with Flex running on Android in Flash Player and AIR:

Watch AS34J – ActionScript 3 for Java Developers

Mon, 17 May 2010 16:49:13 +0000

Last week I did an eSeminar on AS34J - ActionScript 3 for Java Developers. This was originally a presentation that Chet Haase and I did at Devoxx. Later Chet also published the presentation as a two part article on JavaWorld (Part 1 and Part 2). Check out the eSeminar and let me know what you think.

Flex and Java Differences: Getters & Setters

Fri, 07 May 2010 14:57:37 +0000

In Java it has become a standard practice to use a getter & setter notation to provide a consistent interface to an object’s properties. There is a reason why we don’t do the following in Java:

public String fullName;

The code above essentially creates an interface (or contract) between the class and the implementors of this class that does not allow us to change the underlying implementation of what gets returned when the fullName property is accessed on an instance of the class. So if someone has Java code that accesses the fullName property:

Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Podcast

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:09:27 +0000

While I was at the Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise conference in Philly I was able to participate in a very fun podcast. The casual chat was hosted by Ken Rimple of Chariot Solutions. Participating in the podcast were Adam Coomes of Infegy, Ed Burns of Oracle, Cote of Redmonk, and myself. Topics ranged from cheesesteaks to turbo buttons. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

Flex at the Austin JUG and Stir Trek in Columbus

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:07:10 +0000

Tomorrow night I’ll be in Austin, Texas speaking at the Java User Group about Better Software with Java and Flex (Try the Google Cache Page in case the site is not working). And then next week I’ll be at Stir Trek in Columbus, Ohio presenting about Flex and the Cloud. I hope to see some of you at these events!

Flex 3 SDK in Flash Builder 4

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:23:46 +0000

The Flex 4 SDK has some great new features but for existing Flex 3 apps upgrading might not yet be an option. Luckily Adobe’s professional tooling for Flex, now called Flash Builder 4, is abstracted from the underlying SDK. This means that you can take advantage of many of the new Flash Builder 4 features while still using the Flex 3 SDK. I recently recorded a screencast showing how to use Flash Builder 4 with Flex 3 projects. Check out “Moving projects from Flex Builder 3 to Flash Builder 4” by Andrew Shorten to see my screencast.

Drunk on Software #23 “I’d give it a 4.5 out of 10”

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:03:27 +0000

In Episode 23 we chat with Adam Flater and Rob Rusher about some very controversial topics. Adam points out James’ wishful thinking when we discuss what defines something being a “Flex application”. Jon gets the award for best quote of the episode when we discuss Flex and its community. Things get fun as we discuss Silverlight and Flex differences. As we wrap up Jon rates the wonderful scotch we were drinking an 8 out of 10.

Video: Build your First Desktop Application with Flash Builder

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:47:35 +0000

In this video I walk through the basics of building Adobe AIR desktop applications in Flash Builder 4 using the Flex 4 SDK. Let me know what you think.

Upcoming Flex Presos: Cincinnati, Philly, Houston, and Dallas

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:02:31 +0000

Here are some upcoming presentations I’ll be doing about Flex:

Cincinnati March 24 - cincyFlex - What’s new in the world of Flex?
Cincinnati March 25 - CinJUG - Flex in the Cloud
Philly April 8 - Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise - Building Client/Server 2.0 Apps with Flex
Houston April 13 - Houston Adobe User Group and Space City Flex Users Group
Dallas April 14 - JavaMUG - Using Flex and Java to Build Rich and Highly Interactive Software

I hope to see you at one of these events!

Flex Paint Updated To Flex 4

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:29:13 +0000

One of my most viewed blogs is one of the most simple demo apps I’ve built. It’s a simple Flex app that lets the user draw with their mouse and then lets them save their drawing. I’ve updated the Flex Paint demo to Flex 4. Check it out:

(View the source code)

Flex 4 is Here! Go forth and build better software!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:25:54 +0000

Flex 4 and its counterpart, Flash Builder 4, are now publicly available! We’ve also launched a new flex.org and added a ton of new Flex 4 samples in Tour de Flex!

Rich Internet Applications are the next generation of software. For the first time in the history of software the goal is not to simply collect or interpret data, but to make those tasks productive and simple. RIAs move us up the hierarchy of user and business needs. It is unproductive to change technologies and create the same old stuff. We change technologies because they provide new value like closing more deals, reducing task completion time, or gaining customer loyalty.

Flex Camp Wall Street and Flex on the Cloud Videos

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:16:19 +0000

Two great Flex conferences have recently posted their video recordings:

There were numerous great sessions and speakers at each of these conferences. At Flex Camp Wall Street I presented “Flex Stuff I am Excited About”. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Upcoming Presos: Flash Camp Chicago, Devnexus & Flex on the Cloud in Atlanta, Java Posse Roundup, and TSSJS Las Vegas

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:39:15 +0000

I’ll be attending and presenting at a number of great events over the next few weeks:

February 26 Flash Camp Chicago
March 8 - 9 Devnexus in Atlanta
March 10 Flex in the Cloud in Atlanta
March 16 - 19 Java Posse Roundup in Crested Butte, Colorado
March 17 - 19 The Server Side Java Symposium in Las Vegas

I hope to see you at these events!

Flex 4 and Java Basics Video

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:41:46 +0000

Here is a new screencast that walks through the basics of integrating Flex 4 and Java:

(Open full-size video in a new window)

Flex Performance on Mobile Devices

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:46:24 +0000

This past weekend I spent an hour optimizing the Flex 4 scrolling demo that I posted last week. The original demo was intended to show how to hook up touch events to the Flex 4 List / DataGroup controls. This new version adds some optimizations for the touch event handling and adds the kinetic flick behavior. Check it out and let me know what you think:

I’ve posted the code for this second version of the touch scrolling demo. It was pretty trivial to optimize it this far. With a little more work it’ll be as smooth as silk and as fast as Apolo Ohno. :)

Flex 4 List Scrolling on Android with Flash Player 10.1

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:53:56 +0000

UPDATE 1: The first version of this demo was intended to show how to hook up touch events to the Flex 4 List / DataGroup controls. I’ve posted a new version that adds some optimizations for the touch event handling and adds the kinetic flick behavior.

One of the challenges of running existing web content on mobile devices is that user interactions differ between mediums. For instance, on a normal computer with a mouse, scrolling though lists is often done by clicking on scroll bars or mouse wheels. On mobile devices that lack a pointing device this is not the best interaction paradigm. On devices with touch screens the paradigm for scrolling is usually a swipe gesture.

Flex Apps on Mobile Devices

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:57:19 +0000

This week at Mobile World Congress Adobe has been showing off Flash Player 10.1 on a variety of mobile devices. Last week I received Google’s Nexus One device with an early version of Flash Player 10.1 on it. Here is a video I shot today showing how Flex applications can run on mobile devices with Flash Player 10.1 and how existing applications can be tweaked for the size constraints of these devices. Let me know what you think.

Geek Week in Denver

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:53:09 +0000

This week in Denver is going to be a total geek fest! I’m pretty excited about three great events:

Monday Feb 15: Jason Huggins on Web-application testing with Selenium
Tuesday Feb 16: Denver Tech Meetup
Thursday Feb 18: Flex and The Cloud (I’m presenting at this one.)

There is a rumor that we might record a Drunk on Software episode after the event on Thursday. Apparently there are some people who disagree with my definition of “Flex app”. This could be the episode where we move from an Oprah style show to a Jerry Springer style of show. Sounds like fun to me. :)

Time to Update to Flex SDK 3.5a

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:44:40 +0000

If you are using a Flex SDK before 3.5a then it’s probably time to update. Flex SDKs before 3.4 have a security vulnerability. I believe the problem is actually in the HTML template, so when you update make sure that you also update the HTML templates that you are using. The Flex SDK 3.4 had the double responder bug. And the initial release of Flex SDK 3.5 had a bug with AIR’s ApplicationUpdaterUI. If you overlay your own AIR SDK on top of the Flex SDK then be aware that you will actually be overwriting the ApplicationUpdaterUI fix (comments in the bug report discuss how to deal with that).

London Event Tomorrow: RIAs with Java, Spring, Hibernate, BlazeDS, and Flex

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:33:12 +0000

Tomorrow night, Wednesday Feburary 10 2010, I’ll be speaking to the London Java Community about RIAs with Java, Spring, Hibernate, BlazeDS, and Flex. I hope to see you there!

First Steps in Flex Screencasts

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:33:56 +0000

A little over a year ago Bruce Eckel and I published First Steps in Flex. So far we’ve had great feedback on the book. The concise examples seem to resonate with how developers learn new technologies. Another way that developers learn is through seeing technologies firsthand. To better support that model of learning Bruce and I decided to create screencasts for each chapter of the book.

Tampa Bay Adobe Developer Event this Thursday

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:37:45 +0000

Adobe’s Enterprise Evangelism team including Greg Wilson, Christophe Coenraets, and myself are in Tampa, FL this week. On Thursday night we are rounding up the local geeks at Taverna Opa for free beers and drunken confabulation about Flex, The Flash Platform, and other topics that bore most normal people. Hope to see you there!

Flex and The Cloud

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:49:53 +0000

The combination of Flex and The Cloud is quickly becoming an IT and paradigm changing combination. Here are a number of recently published resources for learning more about this :

An article I wrote has been published on the online Flash & Flex Developer’s Magazine: Flex and The Cloud: Is this really just Client/Server 2.0?
I’ll be speaking on Thursday, February 18 2010 at the Denver Flex User Group about Flex and The Cloud
The recording of a webinar I co-hosted on the new Salesforce.com Cloud platform for developers has been posted
Jeff Douglas has posted a video walk through showing how to use the new Salesforce.com Flash Builder 4 extension for Flex + Cloud apps

Exciting stuff! Let me know what you think!

Flex 4, Java, Spring, and Hibernate in Flash Builder 4

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:30:26 +0000

UPDATE 1: Flash Builder 4, BlazeDS 4, and Spring 1.0.3 have all been release so you no longer have to use beta or nightly builds of these products. Use the production versions!

UPDATE 2: A Refcard on Integrating Spring 3 and Flex 4, which I co-authored, is now available! It provides a step-by-step tutorial for setting up everything I show in the video below.

Last week I posted a screencast that walks through the basics of connecting a Flex 4 application to a Java / Spring back-end with the new Data Wizards in Flash Builder 4. Here is a new video that extends beyond just simple RPC method calls and adds Hibernate for persistence. Let me know what you think.

Right90’s Super-Sexy Enterprise Flex RIA

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:41:07 +0000

While at Dreamforce 2009 I was able to see some amazing enterprise Flex RIAs. Here is an RIA Cowboy Video of Right90‘s Sales Forecasting application. Let me know what you think.

Flash Builder 4 Data Wizards with Java / Spring

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:19:41 +0000

UPDATE 1: Flash Builder 4, BlazeDS 4, and Spring 1.0.3 have all been release so you no longer have to use beta or nightly builds of these products. Use the production versions!

UPDATE 2: I’ve done a second part to this screencast that combines Flex 4, Flash Builder 4, Spring 3, BlazeDS 4, and Hibernate 3.

UPDATE 3: A Refcard on Integrating Spring 3 and Flex 4, which I co-authored, is now available! It provides a step-by-step tutorial for setting up everything I show in the video below.

Integrating Adobe Flex with IBM WebSphere Portal

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:48:44 +0000

Integrating Flex into portals has always been an interesting topic for enterprise developers. Other than a blog I did a while back there hasn’t been much information out there about how to get Flex apps into portals. But I just read a great article on IBM developerWorks about Integrating Adobe Flex with IBM WebSphere Portal. It’s a great read for enterprise developers looking to combine Flex and WebSphere Portal.

Intuit Cloud Webinar on January 14

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:03:04 +0000

Edit: Whoops. It’s on the 14th not the 24th!

Intuit’s Cloud / Platform as a Service (PaaS) technology called the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) has quickly matured into a first class Client + Cloud solution. Building a custom user interface with IPP is done through Flex. This is a perfect combination and opens many opportunities for developers to build and sell apps into Intuit’s extensive ecosystem. They are doing a Webinar on January 14 about what’s new in IPP v2.4. This is a great opportunity to learn more about how you can build apps for the IPP with Flex. Definitely a session not to miss!

Drunk on Software Episode 22: Sleeping on the Couch

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:51:32 +0000

Episode 22 of Drunk on Software is certainly one of my favorites. Jon and Chet seem to think I fell asleep during the episode. Personally I think that I was temporarily abducted by some angry aliens that don’t like humans who wear bear hats. Hmmm.. Like the episode that makes no sense. So grab your favorite adult beverage (if you are of legal age) and enjoy!

Exciting Flash Platform Advancements

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:56:44 +0000

Recently there has been a number of exciting advancements with the Flash Platform (Flex, Flash Player, and Adobe AIR). Here is a quick round-up:

Adobe released security updates for the Flash runtimes: Flash Player 10.0.42.34 and Adobe AIR 1.5.3. The Flash Player update fixes an issue with mouse scroll wheels not working in Flash when using Safari.

Recently, Adobe also released public betas for Adobe AIR 2 and Flash Player 10.1. This Flash Player release fixes the “Incorrect unicode input in Linux” bug. Both AIR 2 and Flash Player 10.1 have a new API for Global Exception Handling (which was one of the highest rated feature requests on bugs.adobe.com). Check out Tour de Flex for some new samples on how to use this new and other new APIs.

Matt Raible Compares Flex, GWT, Rails and Grails

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:27:26 +0000

At the Rich Web Experience 2009 conference, Matt Raible presented a very insightful comparison of “kick-ass” web frameworks including Flex, Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Ruby on Rails and Grails. I appreciate his “right tool for the job” approach which moves beyond technology dogma towards real solutions. He includes some very revealing charts comparing jobs posts, StackOverflow posts, mailing list traffic and other stats. Check out the slides from his presentation:

Salesforce.com and the Adobe Flash Platform eSeminar

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:20:35 +0000

On Thursday December 17th I’ll be doing an eSeminar about Salesforce.com and the Adobe Flash Platform. This is a great opportunity to learn more about how to build Flex RIAs on the Cloud using the new Flash Builder for Force.com tool. Sign up and see more details. Hope to see you there!

Drunk on Software Special Episode from Devoxx 2009

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:20:22 +0000

Devoxx is an annual developer conference in Antwerp, Belgium. Devoxx is typically held at the coldest, most miserable time of year to allow attendees to concentrate on the most important thing: Belgian Beer. Drunk on Software’s, Chet Haase, was at the conference this year, talking to various people in bars, in restaurants, and in bars about what they were interested in drinking, er, enjoying at the conference this year.

Drunk on Software Episode 20: Dipock Das on Making Better Enterprise Software

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:02:29 +0000

Here is another new episode of Drunk on Software!

Let me know what you think!

The Best and Worst Practices Building RIAs

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:22:40 +0000

A few weeks ago at the Web 2.0 Expo in NY I co-presented The Best and Worst Practices Building RIAs with Josh Holmes. Some would say that Josh and I evangelize competitive technologies (Silverlight and Flex). So it’s really fun for us to come together and find common ground around building great software - no matter what technology is behind it. Here are the slides from our presentation. Let me know what you think.

Flex Builder on Linux Update

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:32:44 +0000

Adobe has posted an update for Flex Builder on Linux which was scheduled to time-out on December 1, 2009. While the Flex SDK has always worked on Linux, development is certainly easier with Eclipse support for coding, compiling, and debugging. This alpha 5 release of Flex Builder for Linux allows us Linux folks to continue building Flex applications in Eclipse for another 401 days. However, Adobe has still not announced any plans to create a full Flex Builder (or Flash Builder) product for Linux. If that is something you want then please go vote for FB-19053. This update still doesn’t support Eclipse 3.5. If you want Eclipse 3.5 support then you will need to apply patches created by Danyul and myself.

Flex At Dreamforce 2009

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:51:17 +0000

This week I’m in San Francisco at Dreamforce - Salesforce.com’s yearly conference. It’s amazing to walk around the expo hall and see how much Flex is being used in enterprise products and services. Like last year I’ve been recording some videos of some of the great enterprise Flex apps here. Also Greg Wilson has been tweeting a few pics of some of these apps including right90 (update: now a video instead of a pic) and PivotLink with more to come.

My Upcoming Flex Presentations: Dallas SOA UG, TexFlex, Flex Camp Wall Street, Web 2.0, and Dreamforce

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:21:28 +0000

Here are some upcoming Flex presentations I’ll be giving:

Thursday November 12 in Dallas - Java and Flex
Friday November 13 in Plano, TX - Flex and the Cloud @ TexFlex09
Monday November 16 at Flex Camp Wall Street (New York) - Flex Stuff I’m Excited About
Monday November 16 at the Web 2.0 Expo (New York) - Connecting RIA’s to Services
Tuesday November 17 at the Web 2.0 Expo (New York) - Best and Worst Practices Building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) from Adobe and Microsoft (with Josh Holmes)
Thursday November 19 at Dreamforce (San Francisco) - Building Force.com Apps with Adobe Flex/AIR

I hope to see you somewhere along the way!

How Bad Crossdomain Policies Expose Protected Data to Malicious Applications

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:15:22 +0000

The web’s success has been partially due to the sandbox it provides users. Users do not generally have to entirely trust every website they visit because malicious web sites should be sandboxed from doing the user harm. One way that web sites are sandboxed is through a same-origin policy. By default any code that runs inside a web browser can only access data from the domain in which the code originated from. So if code (JavaScript, Flash, etc) loads from the foo.com domain then it can’t access data on the bar.com domain. The code may be able to make requests to bar.com but the code from foo.com shouldn’t be able to read or access the results of those requests.

Drunk on Software at Adobe MAX 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:03:19 +0000

Here’s a special episode of Drunk on Software from Adobe MAX 2009. Enjoy!!

My Video from MAX 2009 – Introduction to BlazeDS and LCDS

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:25:23 +0000

Here is the video of my session from MAX 2009 - Introduction to BlazeDS and LCDS. In this session I walk through the basics of connecting Flex applications to BlazeDS and LCDS. Let me know what you think!

Drunk on Software – Java Posse, MAX 2009, and Simeon Bateman

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:24:00 +0000

We’ve recently posted three great episodes of Drunk on Software - the video podcast for those who like booze and bits. So grab your favorite adult beverage (if you are of legal age), sit back, and enjoy getting Drunk on Software!

Episode 17: Half of the Java Posse

Episode 18: MAX 2009 Deep Thoughts

Episode 19: Simeon Bateman MAX 2009 Wrap-up

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Desktop Edition Review

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:22:33 +0000

Today Ubuntu released Karmic Koala 9.10 Desktop Edition. Like Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I find this release underwhelming. It seems that all three major operating systems are running out of room for innovation and the focus has now shifted to core improvements. But the lack of anything really new and exciting in all three recently released operating systems (Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 9.10) indicates that the OS space has become a commodity market. All OS innovation seems to have shifted to mobile devices while the only significant remaining differentiator between the operating systems is the applications that run natively on them.

Upcoming Flex and Java Presentations in Zurich and Dallas

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:09:38 +0000

Here are a few upcoming Flex and Java presentations I’ll be giving:

Thursday October 29 in Zurich - RIAs with Java, Spring, Hibernate, BlazeDS, and Flex
Thursday November 12 in Dallas - Java and Flex
Friday November 13 in Plano, TX - Flex and the Cloud @ TexFlex09

I hope to see you there!

Adobe and Salesforce.com Unite RIA and The Cloud

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:17:03 +0000

The two major trends transforming software right now are Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and Cloud Computing / Software as a Service (SaaS or PaaS). These trends are driven by two needs:

Full client capabilities, which allow software to perform optimally and increase usability
- - Easy deployment, which allows developers to focus on business needs instead of building infrastructure
  The combination of RIA and Cloud is the future of software because it provides full client capabilities and easy deployment. The chart below illustrates this in comparison to the other major software architectures (main-frame, client / server, and web).

<img src="http://www.jamesward.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/RIA.png" alt="RIA" title="RIA" width="600" height="370" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1272" srcset="https://www.jamesward.com/uploads/2009/10/RIA.png 600w, https://www.jamesward.com/uploads/2009/10/RIA-300x185.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

In line with these trends Adobe and Salesforce.com [announced today][1] that they are working together to unite Rich Internet Applications and The Cloud. At the core of this announcement is a developer preview of the [Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com][2] tool. This tool enables developers to easily build intuitive user interfaces with Flex which connect to the Force.com cloud platform and Salesforce.com CRM data. These applications can be deployed either in the browser or on the desktop using Adobe AIR. When utilizing Adobe AIR, the applications can still function when users are disconnected. Later, when users reconnect, the changes are synchronized with Force.com using the LiveCycle Data Services synchronization engine.

Being able to connect Flex applications to Salesforce.com / Force.com has been possible (and easy) since I co-created what was originally called the [Flex Toolkit for Apex][3]. So while it has been possible to build Rich Cloud Applications for a few years, today's announcement is significant for a few reasons:

  * Adobe and Salesforce are now officially partnered together around Rich Cloud Applications
  * Much better, officially supported developer tooling
  * Much better offline data synchronization

It's really exciting to see how the vision of Rich Cloud Applications is becoming reality!

If you'd like to learn more or try out the new tooling check out these resources:

  * [Get the developer preview and watch video demos][2]
  * [Get inspired and see how it works][4]
  * [Watch a video walk-through][5]

Another great way to learn more is to sign up for a [Webinar / Tech Talk][6] that I will be co-presenting.

Let me know what you think about this exciting new partnership and developer tooling.

Text to Speech in Flex

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:20:21 +0000

Back in August at the Flex Jam in Orlando one of the projects we worked on was Text to Speech in Flex. We didn’t finish the project at the Jam so I wanted to post the final version here. Check it out:

(source code)

I used the iSpeech.org API to convert the text to speech. It was pretty easy to build this demo but a production version would need to use a proxy so that the username and password can’t be discovered.

Flex Builder 3 on Eclipse 3.5

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:01:00 +0000

UPDATE: Flash Builder 4 (the new version of Flex Builder) officially supports Eclipse 3.5. Download Flash Builder 4.

I recently tried to upgrade to Eclipse 3.5 on my Ubuntu Linux desktop. Unfortunately this caused some problems with the Flex Builder 3 for Linux alpha 4. According to the stack traces in Eclipse the main problems seemed to stem from the com.adobe.flexbuilder.project.compiler.internal.ProblemManager class. So I decided to re-write that class from scratch to see if I could make the problems go away. My new implementation of ProblemManager seems to have fixed the issues that I was seeing. I’ve only tested this on Linux so I’m not sure if it will fix any problems on Mac or Windows. Here are the instructions for fixing the problems with Flex Builder 3 on Eclipse 3.5 on Linux:

Learn Flex Fast: Watch 6 First Steps in Flex Screencasts

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:31:56 +0000

As a companion to our book, First Steps in Flex, Bruce Eckel and I have recorded some screencasts which walk through the code samples in the book. Let us know what you think about these first few. The rest will be posted sometime in the next few months.

Query the Loaded Classes in Flex / AS3

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:00:09 +0000

One of the things I love most about programming is running into walls and then finding creative ways to get over (or through) them. The most recent wall I ran into with Flex was that I wanted to be able to find classes at runtime that either implement a given interface or have specific metadata on them. Flash Player doesn’t provide an API to do this directly so I went searching for a workaround. Christophe Herreman tipped me off to a few great utilities for doing this:

RIAs on the Web, on the Desktop, and in a PDF

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:30:51 +0000

Some believe that the “Internet” in “rich Internet application” (RIA) means that RIAs must only run in the browser. However my definition of RIA is not constrained to only web-based applications. RIAs can run anywhere: web, desktop, mobile devices, TVs, or even inside PDFs. Ideally we should have some level of code and library reusability between these environments. However to think that we can reuse the entire application is a pipe dream. Client capabilities and end user needs vary too greatly between these mediums.

Flex and Java in Chicago and Ann Arbor

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:48:11 +0000

This month I’ll be presenting about Flex and Java at the Chicago and Ann Arbor Java User Groups:

Also on September 22 I’ll be doing a Flex Jam in Ann Arbor (all day coding and exploration).

I hope to see some of you at one of these events!

Building Rich Cloud Applications with Force.com and Flex

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:00:59 +0000

Combining the power of the cloud and the client allows developers to have the best of both worlds - easy deployment and full client capabilities. Salesforce.com’s cloud platform, called Force.com, and the Flash Platform are two proven and reliable choices for building these types of Rich Cloud Applications. Last week I co-hosted a webinar called “Developing Rich User Interfaces on Force.com Using Adobe Flex” in which Ryan Marples (from Salesforce.com) and I walked through the two platforms and how to use them together to build great software. If you didn’t have the chance to join the webinar then please go watch the recording and let us know what you think.

My MAX 2009 Sessions

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:09:16 +0000

MAX 2009 is coming fast! It’s going to be another great event with tons of great speakers and after party fun. Here are my sessions this year:

Also Drunk on Software will be there filming some episodes.

So this is certainly a MAX you don’t want to miss! I hope to see you there!

Drunk On Software with Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:46:27 +0000

It was really fun to be able to sit down and record an episode with Ben and Dion. They are great guys who are at the center of the tech industry. Let me know what you think of the episode.

Flex and Java Festivities Next Week in Florida

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:31:49 +0000

I’ll be in Florida next week for a few great Flex and Java events:

Tuesday August 25 - Flex Jam in Winter Park, FL - This is a bring your own laptop, self-paced learning event. Anyone, at any level of Flex knowledge is welcome.
Wednesday August 26 - Flex and Java at the GatorJUG
Thursday August 27 - Flex and Java at the Orlando JUG

If you live in Florida then I hope to see you at these events!

Have a Question Unrelated to a Blog Post?

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:37:49 +0000

If you have a technical question that is unrelated to one of my blog posts, then here is what to do… If that question is specific to you and no one else in the developer community, then email me at jaward at adobe dot com (obfuscated to avoid spam). I will respond to your email but response times can greatly fluctuate. If you have a more general technical question that pertains to the broader developer community then do the following (this option will usually yield a response within hours):

Fonts in Flex 4 / Flash Player 10 / AIR 1.5 Make Me Happy

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:05:52 +0000

Device font rendering in Flash content has always had some limitations, including the inability for text to be correctly scaled, rotated, and faded. Due to these limitations many developers using Flex resort to embedding fonts. But this can really bloat the size of applications - especially when working with non-English languages. Luckily Flash Player 10 / AIR 1.5 added a new font engine! To make using the new engine easy Adobe also created an open source library called the Text Layout Framework, which wraps Flash Player’s low level text APIs. Flex 4 Spark components use the Text Layout Framework for all text rendering. The end result is much better device font support in Flex applications. Here’s a quick example (view source):

Tour de Flex and Java – Sacramento, San Diego, Detroit, and Salt Lake City

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:09:30 +0000

I’ll be presenting about Flex and Java at some Java User Groups over the next few weeks. Here’s the lineup:

Hope to see you at one of these JUGs!

Drunk on Software with Universal Mind / SpatialKey

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:24:37 +0000

In this episode of Drunk on Software, Jon Rose and I catch up with Tom Link, Brandon Purcell, and Doug McCune from Universal Mind. We chat about SpatialKey, one of the most impressive Flex applications I’ve seen. So grab your favorite beverage, sit back, relax, and get Drunk on Software. :)

Webinar: Developing Rich User Interfaces on Force.com Using Adobe Flex

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:27:52 +0000

On August 27 I’ll be co-presenting a webinar - Developing Rich User Interfaces on Force.com Using Adobe Flex. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about combining Cloud and RIA to create software that works well for end users and significantly reduces IT costs. If this interests you then go sign-up now. Hope to “see” you on August 27th.

Protected Messaging in Flex with BlazeDS and LCDS

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:47:49 +0000

UPDATE: BlazeDS 4 and LCDS 3.1 now have built-in support to disallow subscriptions to wildcard subtopics. Just set the following parameter on the messaging destination’s server properties:

<disallow-wildcard-subtopics>false</disallow-wildcard-subtopics>

You no longer need to use the ProtectedMessagingAdapter from the code examples below in order to protect your messages.

One of the great things about Flex is how easy it is to set up publish and subscribe messaging using BlazeDS, LCDS, or other various server technologies. Basically a Flex application can be either a Consumer of messages from the server, a Producer of messages to the server, or both. The channels that are used for the actual transport can vary dramatically depending on the needs. Here is a great blog that explains the different transports. No matter what transport / channel is used the API in Flex is the same. If you'd like to see how to use those APIs check out this video I recorded.

Flex 4 Example – Halo Component with Spark Skin

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:38:53 +0000

Lately I’ve been playing with the Flex 4 Beta to better understand the new Spark component set. Halo is the name being used to describe the Flex 2 and Flex 3 component set. In Flex 4 you can choose to either use only Halo or use both Spark and Halo together. Since Spark has some great features like improved skinning and FXG (declarative vector drawing) support it is a great option for creating pixel perfect UIs. But sometimes you might need to stick with the Halo components. Luckily it seems that you can use the Spark skinning classes on Halo components. Here’s an example of this technique based on an earlier demo I built which used only Spark:

Drunk on Software Episode 14 – FlexMonkey Fiesta at Casa Bonita

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:07:27 +0000

To celebrate the launch of FlexMonkey 1.0, Drunk on Software went to Cartman’s most favorite place in the whole world - Casa Bonita. And there at Casa Bonita amongst happy children and cliff divers, Episode 14 came to be. I’m not sure if it was the margaritas, my pink feather boa, or the ambiance of Casa Bonita but this one was really fun. So grab a marg, sit back, and drift to that happy place - it’s Drunk on Software at Casa Bonita!

Give your mouse a break! FlexMonkey 1.0 Released

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:45:05 +0000

Typically when I develop Flex apps for the browser or the desktop (via Adobe AIR) I do a lot of clicking to test every change I make. My mouse gets a little worn out and I waste a lot of time. Luckily there is a better way to test Flex apps. Flex supports automated testing of applications but you need software that does the record, playback, and test validation. FlexMonkey is a free and open source tool that does automated testing on Flex apps. It just reached the 1.0 release and it now contains a number of new great features like:

Flex Example: Right-Click -> Save Image As

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:41:52 +0000

One of the things that is available in HTML web pages but usually left out of Flex applications is the ability to save images by right-clicking on them. This is not because it’s not possible with Flex - rather it just requires a little extra coding. So I created a simple Flex example that adds the “Save Image As” right-click menu item. Check out the demo and the source code.

Take the Tour de Flex

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:48:40 +0000

I recently recorded a video about how to use Tour de Flex for Adobe TV. Check out the video below and if you haven’t already done so, install Tour de Flex by clicking on the installer badge located in the left column of this blog.

How would you write this ActionScript code?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:36:17 +0000

I was just watching Lee Brimelow’s fantastic video about Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder and noticed some Flex / ActionScript code (generated by Flash Catalyst) that caught my attention:

var state:String = currentState;
if ( state == 'closed' ) {
    currentState='open';
}
if ( state == 'open' ) {
    currentState='closed';
}

This code just toggles the currentState property between ‘open’ and ‘closed’. I initially thought that the code was not very elegant in that form but that maybe there was a reason it was written like that. Maybe Flash Catalyst needs it in that form to understand it. Maybe it’s more efficient for the VM to run. I’m not totally sure. But it made me curious… How would you write the same functionality? Use a ternary operator? A switch statement? If - else if? If - else? And why would you do it that way? Is it your personal preference, are there performance implications, SWF size implications, is your way more readable, or are there other factors? While programming provides us many ways to express our creative freedom it seems that for common patterns like this there might be a universal “best way” to do this. Or perhaps this is just another tabs versus spaces kind of issue. I’d love to hear what the community thinks!

Flex and Salesforce / Force.com Updates

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:37:04 +0000

There have been a lot of exciting things happening with Flex and Salesforce / Force.com lately. First Ryan Marples recently announced the release of an updated version of the Force.com Toolkit for Adobe AIR and Flex. If you are doing development with Flex and Salesforce or Force.com you should download this new release to take advantage of the latest enhancements to the web services APIs.

Today Adobe updated the Adobe Developer Connection’s page containing information about integrating Flex and Salesforce / Force.com. This new page contains new videos, demos, articles, and other great content. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Flex in Zurich and Copenhagen Next Week

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:17:28 +0000

With the recent beta releases of Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst there is a lot of fun stuff going on. Next week I’ll be speaking in Zurich at Jazoon on Tuesday about RIAs with Java, Spring, Hibernate, BlazeDS, and Flex. On Wednesday I’ll be speaking in Copenhagen about Flex 4 and Flash Catalyst. Thursday I’m back in Zurich speaking about Flex 4. And finally on Friday I’ll be speaking at Flash at the Lake about Pixel Bender and pbjAS. Lots of fun stuff! I hope to see some of you along the way.

Blazing Fast Data Transfer in Flex

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:52:37 +0000

A while back I created the Census RIA Benchmark to illustrate the benefits of having both a high performance client VM and a binary serialization protocol. These factors combined lead to significantly faster data transfer and rendering for large datasets in rich Internet applications. Recently I created an Adobe TV video that walks through Census and how to use Flex and BlazeDS to take advantage of these benefits. Check it out and let me know what you think.

DZone Podcast about Adobe AIR, Flex, and Java

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:53:43 +0000

I recently recorded a podcast with James Sugrue for DZone. In the podcast we talk about why Flex and Adobe AIR are relevant to Java developers. You can either listen to the podcast or read transcribed text. It’s good to see DZone doing a lot more Flex related content including the Refcardz I’ve co-authored: Very First Steps in Flex and Flex and Spring Integration.

Let me know what you think of the podcast. Thanks!

Announcing pbjAS – An ActionScript 3.0 Pixel Bender Shader Library

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:53:00 +0000

One of the major new features in Flash Player 10 is Pixel Bender. Like its name suggests, the primary purpose of Pixel Bender is to allow you to easily manipulate pixels inside a Flash application. A great demo of this is the FotoBooth application, which applies different filters to webcam input. While tweaking pixels is the primary purpose of Pixel Bender, it can also be used as a multi-threaded number crunching machine. You can pass it some numbers, have it perform some mathematical operations on those numbers, and then return the result. This opens up some very interesting opportunities to get outside of the normal single-threaded nature of ActionScript in Flash Player.

Would you pay for Flex Builder on Linux?

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:13:01 +0000

The current alpha version of Flex Builder on Linux doesn’t have feature parity with the Windows and Mac versions of Flex Builder. It is scheduled to timeout on December 1, 2009 and current development seems to be on hold. If you would like to see Adobe create a full version of Flex Builder for Linux then please go vote for feature request #FB-19053! Thanks!

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition Review – What works. What doesn’t.

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:47:27 +0000

Since the days when I installed Slackware Linux via a stack of 3.5″ floppies, Linux has been a *nearly* suitable desktop for me. With some tinkering and with VMWare to run Windows when I need it I’ve been able to use Linux as my primary desktop OS for around 15 years. As computers and software have evolved Linux has had to keep up. In some areas it’s done exceptionally well and in others it has struggled. But based on the improvements in Ubuntu Jaunty I believe the pace of improvement is accelerating. This means that many of the niche oddities and problems with Linux should soon be ironed out.

Video – Connecting Flex to a SOAP Webservice

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:39:17 +0000

Adobe TV has published a video I did recently about connecting Flex to a SOAP Webservice. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Flex Paint 2.0 with Source Code

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:54:07 +0000

UPDATE: I’ve created a new version of Flex Paint with Flex 4.

It’s surprising and somewhat humbling to find out which of my blog posts are the most popular. There are some posts that I spend days on and they end up only being read by a few people. Then there are others that are simple, short, and to be honest kinda boring that end up being read by tons of people. My original Flex Paint blog is one of those simple, short but highly viewed blogs. I would never have thought that out of all my blog posts that one would be read by so many. Since it’s almost two years old and presumably being used as a reference by many people, I thought it would be useful to update it to use the new Flash Player 10 FileReference API to eliminate the need to send the image to the server.

Java User Group Tour: Portland and Cincinnati

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:19:51 +0000

Next week I’m off to a few more Java User Groups to talk about Flex and Java integration:

Also while I’m in Portland I’ll be speaking on April 22nd at the PDX RIA User Group about “Super fast, multi-threaded, number crunching in Flash”.

I hope to see some of you along the way!

Flex and Java

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:31:07 +0000

Tutorials

Free Flex 4, Hibernate 3, and Spring 3 Integration Refcard

Videos

Getting Started Articles

Integrating with Various Java Technologies

Java Posse Interview at Devoxx 2008 with Chet Haase

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:10:57 +0000

While at Devoxx 2008 Chet Haase and I sat down with The Java Posse for an interview about Flex, integrating Flex with Spring, Flex Gumbo, and various other topics. You can listen to the interview via The Java Posse Podcast - episode #242, watch it on parleys.com (perhaps even using their awesome AIR app) or watch it right here. Let me know what you think.

Video – Drunk on Software with Matt Raible

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:36:15 +0000

Matt Raible is a legend in the world of Java web applications. In the latest episode of Drunk on Software Jon Rose and I sit down with Matt, have a few beers, and talk geek stuff. Matt has a lot of great insight into where software is going. In the video we asked him what the future looks like for web frameworks. Matt’s response brought into question the future of component frameworks. Jon and I were pretty surprised by his response. You will have to watch the video to get the whole story. :) Let us know what you think.

Download the Flex and Spring Integration Refcard

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:43:16 +0000

UPDATE: There is a new version of the Refcard available:
Flex 4, Hibernate 3, and Spring 3 Integration

DZone has just published a new Refcard “Flex & Spring Integration” written by Jon Rose and me. This is the second Refcard I’ve written. The first was “Very First Steps in Flex,” which was a few chapters from First Steps in Flex written by Bruce Eckel and me. Working on the Flex & Spring Integration Refcard was fun because I was able to learn more about the new Spring BlazeDS Integration project from SpringSource. I’ve been really impressed with how easy it is to integrate Flex and Spring together. Another great resource for learning how to integrate Flex and Spring is Christophe Coenraets’ Spring BlazeDS Integration Test Drive. It contains a bunch of great examples that will help you better understand how to get everything set up and working.

Portable RIAs Gaining Traction

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:44:48 +0000

It’s great to see the concept of Portable RIAs beginning to crop up in real world applications. The latest one I’ve seen is on ESPN - allowing the user to check out the latest March Madness updates from within a PDF. Check it out:

Free Flex Builder for Unemployed Developers

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:49:06 +0000

Flex Builder is now free for not only students and educators but also for those who are currently unemployed! If you fall into this category - my sympathies - but hopefully by learning Flex you can get a job again soon. And since the Flex job market is super hot, getting a new Flex job shouldn’t be too hard. :)

All you need to do is go to freeriatools.adobe.com and (honestly) fill out the information. I hope this helps get you on your feet again!

My Java User Group Tour Continues: Kansas City, Madison, Milwaukee, and New Orleans

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:26:45 +0000

On the road again… I’ll be talking about Flex and Java at a few more Java User Groups over the next few weeks. Here they are:

Kansas City JUG - April 8th
Madison, WI JUG - April 14th
Milwaukee - April 15th
New Orleans - April 16th

Hope to see you somewhere along the way!

Adobe Reader 9.1 for Linux Released!

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:17:51 +0000

Adobe has released Adobe Reader 9.1 for Linux! This is the first 9.x release on Linux and has a number of new features. My personal favorite is the inclusion of Flash Player so that Portable RIAs will work on Linux! Portable RIAs are beginning to catch on more and so it’s great to have true cross-platform support for them.

The Economics of RIAs

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:46:01 +0000

The current state of the economy has every business thinking about cost cutting and higher productivity. This is fueling significant growth in the Rich Internet Application space. There are numerous examples of businesses achieving substantial return on investment from RIAs. For instance, Allurent, a company that builds RIA E-Commerce solutions, created a better web shopping experience for Borders.com that resulted in 62% higher order conversion. Here is a great video that goes into more details about what they did:

Video – Sexy Apps with Flex

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:17:09 +0000

While I was attending the Java Posse Roundup 2009 I was able to give a 5-minute Lightning Talk about Flex. There are now so many amazing things to show with Flex that it’s really hard to narrow down what will be the most compelling. In past years I showed more code and useful things. But this year I wanted to just make people’s jaws drop.

First I showed the Tour de Flex application to encourage all of the attendees to go explore some great Flex components on their own. I also wanted to show off the new 3D APIs in Flash Player 10 so I showed Justin Everett Church’s Cloth Demo. Then I showed a prototype of an Adobe AIR based catalog for the Anthropologie women’s clothing store.

Flex and Java Tour 2009 Continues – TriJUG, TSSJS, Miami JUG

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:08:24 +0000

I’ll be at the TriJUG tonight talking about integrating Flex and Java in real-world applications.

On Wednesday March 18th I’ll be speaking at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Vegas.

And on March 24th I’ll be speaking in Miami at the Miami JUG.

Hope to see some of you along the way!

Get The Tour de Flex DVD

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:07:38 +0000

The Adobe Platform Evangelism team has created a DVD so that everyone can take the Tour de Flex! Included in the DVD is:

Tour de Flex
Flex Builder 3 Pro Trial (Windows and Mac, Standalone and Eclipse Plugin)
Flex SDK
Flex Documentation including ASDocs
Spring / Flex Test Drive
BlazeDS Turnkey and Binary Distribution
BlazeDS Developer’s Guide
LiveCycle Data Services ES
ColdFusion 8.01 Developer Edition (Windows)

If you or someone you love needs to experience Flex…

Flex Monkey Patching and Framework RSLs

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:47:52 +0000

The Flex Framework RSLs (Runtime Shared Libraries) are a great way to reduce download time for your Flex application. But they have an unfortunate side effect… They break the ability to monkey patch Flex framework classes. The reason for this is the way that the Flex compiler structures a SWF file. Every Flex application has two frames. You can think of a “frame” as a container for compiled ActionScript classes. The Flex compiler puts as few things into the first frame as possible. This is so that the loading progress bar can come up quickly (as soon as the first frame has loaded). If you put too much on the first frame then you wouldn’t see anything happening until the whole first frame is loaded. When you monkey patch a Flex Framework class it usually will go into the second frame. The problem with monkey patching and the framework RSLs is that the RSLs get loaded in the first frame. The Flash Player’s class loader won’t overwrite classes so when the preloader finishes loading and then starts loading frame two (where the monkey patched class is) it will not overwrite the class loaded from the RSL.

Flex Gumbo Sample – Pretty Button with FXG

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:47:50 +0000

Development of the next version of Flex, codenamed Gumbo, is well underway. I’d really encourage everyone to go grab a build and give it a whirl. I did because I wanted to see how I could take a sample I built with Flex 3, Degrafa, and AnimateColor and build the same thing with Flex Gumbo. Here’s that version:

And here is the new version built with Gumbo and FXG (requires Flash Player 10):

Flex Java User Group Tour 2009 – Phoenix & Orange County

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:27:51 +0000

Next week I begin a Java User Group tour where I’ll be talking about integrating Flex with Java, Spring, and Hibernate. First stop is the Phoenix JUG on Wednesday March 11. Then I’ll be at the Orange County JUG on Thursday March 12.

I’ll be at a number of other JUGs over the next few months. I hope to see you along the way!

Video – The Future of Rich Internet Applications at Devoxx 2008

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:51:34 +0000

This is a talk from Devoxx 2008 where Matt Chotin, Chet Haase, and I talk about the new and exciting things coming with Flex.

Let us know what you think!

How Do You Use Flex?

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:57:04 +0000

The Flex team has created a survey about Flex so that we can better understand how people are using it. It takes about 20 minutes but I really encourage everyone using Flex to go take the survey. This will help the Flex team decide what things to focus on in the future.

Take the survey now!

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – Model Metrics

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:23:17 +0000

This is the last of the RIA Cowboy Videos from Dreamforce 2008. In this one I interview Model Metrics about some of the things they are doing with Flex and Salesforce. Cool stuff!

Join the Flex Bug Quash!

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:47:26 +0000

On Saturday, March 28th, 2009 there will be a huge gathering of Flex gurus to quash some of the open source Flex SDK bugs! You can participate either in person (currently only in Seattle but there’s no reason why we can’t add more locations!) or over the Internet. More information is available at: www.bugquash.com

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – Infowelders

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:01:56 +0000

Here’s another video from Dreamforce 2008. In this one I talk with Infowelders about their custom data visualizations built with Flex and the Force.com platform. Very cool stuff!

The Startup Success Podcast

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:47:07 +0000

I was recently able to be a guest on The Startup Success Podcast. I talked with Bob and Patrick about my usual topics: Rich Internet Applications, Flex, Adobe AIR, etc. It was a very enjoyable chat. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – Cloud9 Analytics

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:53:48 +0000

In this video from Dreamforce 2008, Cloud9 Analytics shows me their Flex-based Pipeline Management Suite for Salesforce.com.

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – PivotLink

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:41:51 +0000

In this video from Dreamforce 2008 PivotLink shows off their Flex-based SaaS BI product. Cool Stuff!

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – Tier1CRM

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:49:57 +0000

Here is another great video from Dreamforce 2008. This one is with Tier1CRM who is using Flex for a very compelling financial CRM system. Let me know what you think.

RIA Cowboy Videos – Dreamforce 2008 – InetSoft

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:28:54 +0000

At Dreamforce 2008 there were a ton of exhibitors using Flex. I walked around and interviewed some of those companies so that you can see what real businesses are doing with Flex. In the first interview I talk with InetSoft. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Upcoming Flex Presos: Colorado, Vegas, Philly, Sydney, and Brisbane

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:56:58 +0000

Over the next few months there are a number of great technology conferences across the globe. I’ll be speaking about Adobe AIR and Flex at:

Java Posse Roundup on March 3 - 6 in Crested Butte, CO
TheServerSide Java Symposium on March 18 - 20 in Las Vegas
Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise on March 26 - 27 in Philadelphia
JAOO Sydney on May 5 - 8
JAOO Brisbane on May 11 - 14

I’m also planning a number of Java User Group visits in March and April. I’ll post the dates for those as soon as I get them nailed down.

Learn Flex Fast – 3 Day Jam in Crested Butte, Colorado

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:03:18 +0000

Bruce Eckel and I will be hosting a 3 day Adobe AIR and Flex Jam in Crested Butte, Colorado - February 25 - 27. If you are learning Flex or diving deeper into Flex then this will be a great opportunity to quickly learn more. For beginners we will work through our book First Steps in Flex. Hopefully see you there!

RIA Weeky #41: Portals and RIAs – Flex and Open Source

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:30:50 +0000

Last week I was able to be a guest speaker on the RIA Weekly podcast. In the episode Coté and I talked about RIAs in Portals, Flex and Open Source, and other various topics. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

Adobe TV – Data Synchronization with Flex and LCDS

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Get Drunk on Software at the Flex Jam

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:47:27 +0000

Jon Rose and I will both be at the Flex Jam in Crested Butte, CO on Feb 25 - 27, 2009. So we will certainly be getting Drunk on Software! Hope to see you there!

– Declarative Function Definitions in MXML

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:47:34 +0000

I think I’m the only Flex developer out there that doesn’t like code behind or mx:Script blocks. So I have my own way of doing things. What can I say? I’m a cowboy! ;)

I frequently code event handlers inline like:

<mx:Button>
    <mx:click>    
    // do something
    // do something else
    </mx:click>
</mx:Button>

I just don’t like having to find code that is only used in this one place somewhere else. This method is just more readable to me.

FedEx Launches New Flex-based “My FedEx”

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:15:53 +0000

FedEx has just launched their new Flex-based “My FedEx” application! This is a great example of Flex-based RIAs becoming more prevalant in enterprise software. Very cool stuff!

RTMP Spec To Be Opened

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:14:57 +0000

A little over a year ago Adobe opened the AMF spec. Now Adobe has announced it will be opening the RTMP spec! Wahoo!!! This is big news for Flex developers! For those that don’t know, RTMP is the streaming protocol used for streaming video and audio in Flash Media Server and for streaming data in LiveCycle Data Services. The spec is expected to be published first half of this year.

Drunk on Software – Enterprise Flex Applications

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:51:03 +0000

A new episode of Drunk on Software is available. In this episode we talk with Ryan Knight about Enterprise Flex Applications and the open source Anvil project. Let us know what you think!

.Net Rocks! Podcast from CodeMash 2009 RIA Panel

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:37:17 +0000

At CodeMash 2009 I was able to participate in a panel discussion about Rich Internet Applications, Flex, Silverlight, and Ajax. The panel was moderated by Richard and Carl from the .NET Rocks! podcast. Also on the panel was Josh Holmes and Jesse Liberty from Microsoft and Leon Gersing. It was a fun panel - especially since we enjoyed some fine whiskey during it! But also because it’s great to see how we all have common goals - we all want software to be better no matter what the underlying technology is.

Video: Desktop RIAs on Linux with Adobe AIR 1.5

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:01:34 +0000

Adobe recently announced the release of Adobe AIR 1.5 for Linux! For us Linux users this is huge! Now desktop RIAs with Adobe AIR work the same on Windows, Mac, and Linux! I recorded a short instructional video that shows how to get it working.

(Original video size is 1024 x 768 so you might want to <a href="/air_on_linux"target=”_blank” >open it in a new window or tab.)

Flash Platform Partner Resources

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:58:15 +0000

The Flash Platform (Adobe AIR, Flash Player, Flex, etc.) has become a mainstream software development platform. This is very exciting but also leads to me getting a boat-load of email. That is great! I love hearing from the community and answering questions. I do respond to every email I get - even if it takes a year! I am frequently asked about partnerships. It seems that everyone who is building products or services related to the Flash Platform wants to know how they can help Adobe and how Adobe can help them. I love getting these emails because as the ecosystem around the Flash Platform grows, the Platform itself grows. But due to my often high latency in responding to email I figured it would be good to document many of the Flash Platform Partner resources that are already out there. Here they are…

Drunk on Software – Flex for Managers and Architects

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:32:51 +0000

Episode 6 of the Drunk on Software video podcast is now available! This one is a bit long but dives into a lot of good information. I frequently get the same sorts of questions from developers, IT managers, and architects about Flex. Jon and I discuss those questions in this episode. Let us know what you think!

Learn Flex Fast – Adobe AIR and Flex Jam in Colorado

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:32:13 +0000

February 25 - 27, 2009 Bruce Eckel and I will be hosting a Flex / Adobe AIR Jam in Crested Butte, Colorado. Anyone who needs to learn Flex or take their Flex programming skills further will enjoy the atmosphere and methodology of this event. Attendees can:

Follow our book First Steps in Flex
- Follow our sequence of graduated exercises
  - Explore a particular area or use exercises from other books
    - Bring your own project and get help during the Jam
    To learn more about how a Jam works click here. This event is limited to 35 people so sign-up now!

First Steps in Flex Now Available for Purchase

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:29:09 +0000

Well… The RIA Cowboy is now a published author! As of today you can purchase First Steps in Flex!

It was a great privilege to work on this book with Bruce Eckel. Much of my foundation in OO programming came from reading Bruce’s Thinking in Java book. Writing about Flex with him is like an amateur golfer being able to play a round with Tiger Woods. Luckily Bruce is patient and willing to teach novices like myself. Starting with a short book was a good way for me to begin learning about the process of writing books as well as learn about the significant time commitment required to finish a book. While First Steps in Flex is only 140 pages, I now have a much greater appreciation for those who have written much larger technical books!

Duane’s World: Road to MAX 2008 Europe with James Ward

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:08:51 +0000

I had the great opportunity to be the star of a new Duane’s World episode! In this episode Duane and I share some fine scotch and discuss all of the good reasons to attend MAX Europe. Check it out!

Using Adobe AIR and Flex to Make Your Apps Bling

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:58:13 +0000

At Dreamforce 2008, Salesforce.com’s annual conference, I co-presented a session about integrating Adobe AIR and Flex with Force.com. A recording of that presentation is now available. Let me know what you think.

Drunk on Software Episode 3 – Performance Pitfalls of Flex’s ArrayCollection

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:24:44 +0000

Jon and I have posted Episode 3 of the Drunk on Software video podcast. In this episode we talk about some of the real world performance issues with Flex’s ArrayCollection. We’ve also created a few demos which illustrate how in some cases ArrayCollection is 26 times slower than Array:

Let us know what you think.

Oracle CRM Gadgets using Adobe AIR and Flex

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:06:28 +0000

Oliver Marks is reporting that Oracle has released five new CRM Gadgets built using Adobe AIR and Flex! At Oracle OpenWorld 2008 I had the chance to record a video of these new gadgets. Check it out:

This is a great innovation in the usually boring CRM software space. Great job Oracle!

MAX 2008: RIAs in the Cloud with Salesforce.com and Flex

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:48:09 +0000

Tomorrow at 3:30 at Adobe MAX 2008 there will be a session on building rich Internet applications in the cloud using Salesforce and Adobe Flex. They will even be giving away a new Macbook! The combination of Flex and Force.com (the platform side of Salesforce) is a fantastic way to build RIAs in the cloud. If you are at MAX this is a session not to miss!

Take the Tour de Flex

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:28:15 +0000

Over the past few months Greg Wilson, Christophe Coenraets, and myself have been hard at work on a secret project. So today we are proud to announce the new Tour de Flex has just gone live! Tour de Flex showcases the capabilities of Flex, BlazeDS, LCDS, Adobe AIR, and Flash Player (now collectively called the Adobe Flash Platform).

Like the old Flex Component Explorer, Tour de Flex can be used to find components. But it goes way beyond just out-of-the-box Flex components. This first release contains 217 components and samples including popular Cloud APIs like Salesforce.com and Intuit, numerous community components from people like Doug McCune and Tink, commercial components from companies like ILog, and numerous other goodies. If you find something missing you can submit it!

Flash Player for 64-bit Linux – BETA NOW AVAILABLE!

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:42:48 +0000

Getting Flash Player working on 64-bit Linux systems has been a challenge. But not anymore! Today Adobe Systems released a beta of native Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux! Check it out and report bugs to the open Flash Player bug database. Here is a short video I shot of me testing the new Flash Player 10 plugin for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux. Let me know what you think!

RIA Cowboy Videos – Lightstreamer – Data Streaming for Flex

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:35:18 +0000

While at AjaxWorld 2008 I had the chance to record another episode of the “RIA Cowboy Videos”. This time I talk with Lightstreamer about their AS3 / Flex APIs for streaming data to the client. Check out the video and let me know what you think.

IntelliJ IDEA 8.0 Adds Flex Support

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:14:19 +0000

IntelliJ IDEA 8.0, the popular Java IDE, has been released and now supports building and debugging Flex applications. This is great validation of Flex’s momentum in the Java community. For more information on how to get started see “Creating Flex Applications with IntelliJ IDEA”. If you are a Java and Flex developer you should definitely download the trial version and check it out.

Intuit Unites Flex RIAs and the Cloud

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:03:40 +0000

Normal computer users like my father know at least three software vendors: Microsoft, Adobe, and Intuit. Microsoft is known for Windows and Office, Adobe for PDF (Reader / Acrobat), and Intuit for Quicken and QuickBooks. Yet all three of these software vendors are changing. All are moving in two directions concurrently: rich Internet applications and the cloud. These two paradigm shifts are changing how developers build software but more importantly they are changing how people like my father experience and use software.

Portable RIAs – Flex Apps in PDFs

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:54:00 +0000

Update: I’ve posted another Portable RIA demo.

The web began as a platform for browsing, finding, and exchanging documents. Over the past ten years the web has moved beyond this document-centric role, and is now a platform for exchanging data. We typically refer to web sites used for data exchange as web applications. The next major evolution of the web is underway as web applications become more interactive and useful. The industry now refers to these next generation web applications as rich Internet applications or RIAs.

LincVolt Flex App in Salesforce Keynote

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:24:55 +0000

I’m here at day one of Dreamforce 2008, Salesforce.com’s annual conference. During Marc Benioff’s keynote they announced the new Force.com Sites technology for Salesforce hosted websites which can integrate with Salesforce data. At the end of the keynote Marc brought out Neil Young to talk about LincVolt, an open community for converting gasoline based cars to electric / compressed natural gas cars. It’s a very cool project but what I was really excited about was their use of Flex on the Force.com Sites powered LincVolt website. Here is a camera phone picture of the keynote (notice the sexy Flex chart at the bottom - which you can also see by going to the site).

RIA Cowboy Videos – Neotys – Flex Load Testing

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:54:50 +0000

Since I’m frequently at conferences meeting cool people I thought it would be fun to start recording videos of some of the great things I get to see in my travels. For lack of a more creative title I’m just calling these “RIA Cowboy Videos”. This first video is from AjaxWorld 2008 where I had the guys from Neotys talk about and show off their product NeoLoad, that load tests Flex applications. Interestingly I just watched a screencast by the Farata Systems guys where they used NeoLoad to load test BlazeDS on Jetty using the new Servlet 3 NIO stuff. Detailed article here.

Drunk on Software Episode 2 – Automated Testing with FlexMonkey

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:04:33 +0000

We’ve just posted episode 2 of the new “Drunk on Software” video podcast. In this episode Jon Rose and I talk with Stu Stern from Gorilla Logic about automated testing and FlexMonkey - a tool for automating unit tests in Flex. Let us know what you think.

Flex at Dreamforce 2008

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:49:10 +0000

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ll be at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference next week in San Francisco. On Tuesday I’ll be co-presenting a session on using Adobe AIR and Flex with Force.com. The rest of the time I’ll probably be in the developer lounge hacking on Flex code. Stop by and say hello!

Adobe AIR and Flex in Amsterdam

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:01:26 +0000

In a few weeks I’ll be over in Amsterdam for JFall and FlexCamp. Both events will have some new and exciting presentations about Adobe AIR and Flex. At JFall I’ll be presenting “The Future of the Open Source Flex SDK” and at the FlexCamp I’ll be presenting “Gumbo, what will bring Flex4 to us”. I hope to see you there!

Architecture of RIA from JAOO

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:52:24 +0000

At the JAOO conference in Aarhus, Denmark I was able to co-present with Josh Holmes from Microsoft about the Architecture of RIA. This presentation was technology agnostic so we didn’t talk about specific implementations using platforms like Flex / Flash or Silverlight. Josh has posted the presentation slides and detailed notes on his blog:

Architecture of RIA

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Lets all get Drunk on Software!

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:40:42 +0000

On a recent dreary Saturday afternoon in Denver my friend Jon Rose and I decided to give the video podcasting thing a try. The first episode is about the changes to the recently released Flash Player 10 that will impact software developers (primarily those of the Flex persuasion). When preparing to record the interview we decided to break out the Glenlivet. One thing led to another and somehow we came up with the name “Drunk on Software” as a cheap ripoff of the popular “Joel on Software” blog. But don’t worry… Even though some episodes will involve drinking they will hopefully be coherent and useful. In the future we will be interviewing the smart people we know in the Denver area (or wherever Jon and I happen to be). So if you’d be interested in being interviewed and can handle being barraged with questions while we drink fine liquor, please let us know!

Flex in Denmark

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:52:21 +0000

Next week I’ll be in Denmark for a few Flex presentations at JAOO and at the local university:

Architecture of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) with Josh Holmes

Developing RIAs using Adobe AIR & Flex

Data Synchronization for Rich Internet Applications

Oct 1st Presentation at the University

Hopefully I will see some of you there!

Oracle Open World 2008: Oracle + Flex = Happy Users

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:34:41 +0000

This week I’ve been at Oracle OpenWorld checking out all of the new applications Oracle has been building with Flex. Some of these seem to be integrating Flex and ADF which is a great combination of technologies! I’ve recorded videos of some of these applications which I hope to edit and publish here soon. One of those videos will feature the new Oracle MetaLink, which is a fantastic Flex application (details on Edwin Biemond’s blog).

Beta Available: Adobe AIR 1.1 for Linux

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:13:39 +0000

Having used Linux as my primary desktop for over ten years I can’t help but be a bit jealous of all the great software Windows and Mac users have available to them. But I can’t really blame the software creators for focusing on only those platforms. It’s just purely economics. The cost / benefit of making software work on Linux just isn’t there for most consumer software. What we have always dreamed of is “Write Once, Run Anywhere”. Why can’t software developers write applications for one OS and have it run on all of them?

Integrating Flex and JSF with Exadel Fiji

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:04:47 +0000

Flex and JSF have both been widely adopted by the Java Community. In many instances developers must choose between the two technologies. Today Exadel announced a new product called Fiji which alleviates this decision by providing a simple and seamless way to integrate Flex and JSF.

This is very exciting news for Java developers. For more information read the press release, check out the product page, or see the live demos.

Thinking in Flex with Bruce Eckel

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:35:18 +0000

Last year at JavaPolis Bruce Eckel, Christoph Rooms, and I did a keynote about Flex. That talk has been posted on Parleys.com (which btw is an awesome Flex app!). You can watch it there, in their Adobe AIR application, or right here using the new Parleys.com Share (beta) widget. If you have any problems watching it here please let me know or file a bug. Thanks!

Podcast about Adobe AIR, Flex and BlazeDS / LCDS

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:35:05 +0000

A podcast I recently did with Chariot Solutions has just been published. Let me know what you think.

Flex Data Binding Performance Pitfall

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:20:46 +0000

A friend of mine recently asked me to help him troubleshoot some performance problems with his Flex application. In his scenario he had a large list of data and wanted to filter the data such that each time the search string grew by a character the complex filter would only be run on the results of the previous filter. A very simple approach to this is just to keep a record in each item indicating if the item matched the filter for each search string. Even though the filter function will still run for each item, the complex part of the filter function could easily be isolated and only run for the subset of data which matched the previous filter. This may not be the best way to do this (I’m open to other suggestions) but it was simple. You can see the results of my first attempt here:

Making Headway on Flash Player for 64-bit Linux

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:21:50 +0000

It appears the Flash Player engineering team is making progress on 64-bit Linux support. There are no details yet on when this will ship. But I’m sure they could still use your help.

Video: Flex Effects and Skinning

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:44:18 +0000

Intuit has been using Flex in some very exciting ways recently. One of those is to use Flex as a developer SDK for QuickBase. This allows developers to easily build a great user interface on top of the solid and in-the-cloud back-end of QuickBase. You can find out more about this in the QuickBase Developer Program.

A few weeks ago I presented to developers in the QuickBase Developer Program about making Flex applications look and feel great by adding effects and by skinning components. Intuit has allowed me to repost that presentation here. Let me know what you think.

Very First Steps in Flex – Now Available!

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:47:10 +0000

Bruce Eckel and I have been working on a new Flex book aimed at those totally new to Flex. It will be very short (about 140 pages) and provide just the right information to get someone started with Flex. The book will be called "First Steps in Flex" and should be available soon.

  <p>
    If you would like to be notified when "First Steps in Flex" is available we've setup <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/firststepsinflex-announce">a Google Group</a> for book related announcements.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    For those who just can't wait to check it out... A preview of the book is now available! We've taken a few chapters from "First Steps in Flex" and created a DZone Refcard called "Very First Steps in Flex". Please go "Vote Up" <a href="http://www.dzone.com/links/rss/very_first_steps_in_flex_refcard_available_now.html">the announcement on DZone.com</a>. Then go <a href="http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/very-first-steps-flex">download the Refcard</a> and let us know what you think.</td> </tr> </table>

The Flex Show Episode 50: Interview with James Ward and Bruce Eckel

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:28:57 +0000

Listen to the Flex Show interview with Bruce Eckel and me. Then let me know what you think.

Atlanta JUG and Chicago Flex and AIR Developers Group

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:37:55 +0000

In a few weeks I’ll be stopping by the Atlanta Java User Group and the Chicago Flex and AIR Developers Group:

Atlanta - August 19, 2008 - Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java

Chicago - August 20, 2008 - The Future of Flex, Flash Player, and AIR

Hope to see you there!

Video: Flex Best Practices

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:30:51 +0000

Here is a recording from my presentation about Flex Best Practices / Flex Architectural Patterns at the NLJUG. Sorry that the audio is not great on this one. It turned into more of a discussion than a presentation. Let me know what you think.

Video: Flex and Java

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:24:03 +0000

Here is the recording of a presentation I gave at the NLJUG a few weeks ago on Flex and Java. I hope you find this useful. Let me know what you think.

Upcoming Conference Presentations: GeoWeb, OSCON, and LinuxWorld

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:17:44 +0000

Over the next few weeks I’ll be presenting at a few conferences:

GeoWeb - Map Based RIA Development Using Adobe Flex and AIR with Duane Nickull

OSCON - Flex: the Open Source SDK for RIAs also with Duane

LinuxWorld - Building Rich Internet Applications with an Open Source Stack

I hope to see some of you at those conferences.

The RIA Puzzle: Shaping the Future of the Internet with Adobe Platform Technologies

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:20:02 +0000

Recently I did an interview with Anthony Franco, President of EffectiveUI, about Flex, Adobe AIR, and Rich Internet Applications. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Article & Videos on Integrating Flex and Java

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:38:48 +0000

This week I’m in Europe speaking at various Java User Groups about integrating Flex and Java. I tend to move quickly through code demos so many people have asked me how they can continue learning. Here are a few resources to get you started:

InfoQ Article: Building Web and Desktop Applications with BlazeDS and AMF

Adobe TV Video: Flex Messaging Service

Adobe TV Video: The Data Management Service in LiveCycle Data Services

Email List: JavaFlexCoders Yahoo! Group

My Adobe MAX 2008 Talk

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:37:21 +0000

It’s hard to believe that Adobe MAX 2008 in the US is only 4 months away! It’s going to be another great MAX and I really hope that you can make it. This year I have one session:

Working with Data in Flex

Explore various methods for accessing data in applications built with Flex 3. We’ll discuss how to connect with back ends such as ColdFusion, PHP, .NET, and Java using REST and XML, Web Services, Remoting, Messaging, and the LiveCycle Data Management Service. We’ll also discuss underlying formats such as XML and how to manipulate it using E4X, AMF3, and JSON.

This Week: Europe JUG Tour and SAP / Adobe Nanoconference

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:13:43 +0000

The last few weeks my wife and I have been tromping around the Alps (and we climbed Mont Blanc!) Now it’s time to get back to work. This week I’m visiting a few Java User Groups to talk about the usual topics: Adobe AIR and Flex

Here is the schedule:

July 7 - Zurich Java User Group

July 8 - Paris Java User Group

July 9 - Amsterdam NLJUG

Thinking in Flex Presentation from JavaPolis 2007 is Online

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:03:16 +0000

The Thinking in Flex keynote which Bruce Eckel, Christoph Rooms, and I did at JavaPolis 2007 has been posted! [Check it out!][3]

Let me know what you think.

BTW: Don’t you love that [Parleys.com][4] is a Flex app?!? And they also have an Adobe AIR version of their app which works pretty well on Linux. (To install the Parleys AIR app on Linux install [Adobe AIR for Linux][5] and then get [the Parleys .air file][6].)

Need a QuickFix? Try Google App Engine, Adobe AIR, and Flex

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:09:13 +0000

Last week I spent a few hours with Dick Wall of the Java Posse working on an application which combines Google App Engine, Adobe AIR, and Flex. This was a fun experiment that turned into a pretty cool application. The application, named QuickFix, sends an image to Google App Engine which does an “I’m Feeling Lucky” transformation on the image and sends it back. Here’s a screenshot of it fixing one of the photos I took at the Java Posse Roundup this past winter:

Two Great Flex / Adobe AIR Articles

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:51:45 +0000

Just a quick note about two great articles which were recently published:

ActionScript Collections and Functional Programming by Bruce Eckel

In this article Bruce provides examples and insights into the functional pieces of ActionScript. He also covers some of the lesser known things about Collections. I learned quite a bit from this one!

InfoQ Case Study: NASDAQ Market Replay

Jon Rose worked with NASDAQ to create a great case study about using Adobe AIR, Flex, and Amazon S3.

James Ward is a Sell-Out

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:16:44 +0000

I’ve gone commercial. Kinda. I just bought jamesward.com and it is now my primary domain name instead of jamesward.org. I liked the .org URL but it’s a less familiar URL to non-geeks. You say .com and everyone knows what you mean. The .org will still work - redirects right to here.

So I’m a sell-out. Gone .com. Good news is that you still won’t see any ads on my site.

MAX 2008 – Full of Flex Goodness

Thu, 29 May 2008 18:05:08 +0000

Adobe MAX is a special time of year. Kind-of like getting together the family for Christmas… Lots of drinking, carousing, and the gift of inspiring Flex talks by people like Ely Greenfield and Christophe Coenraets.

This year festivities take place November 16 - 19 at Moscone in San Francisco. Moscone has become like my second home so I’m glad to yet again visit that little village by the sea. Best thing about Moscone is the number of Starbucks within a block of the place.

Filty Rich [Flex] Clients on June 3rd

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:54:46 +0000

Chet Haase and I will be doing a presentation at the SDForum Java SIG in Palo Alto on June 3. Hope to see you there!

Flex and Adobe AIR Interview from QCon SF 2007

Thu, 22 May 2008 02:07:39 +0000

InfoQ.com has posted an old interview I did with Jon Rose at their QCon SF 2007 conference. In this slightly dated interview I talk about the usual Flex, Adobe AIR, and RIA topics. Makes me wish I still had my beard. Gosh I was sexy. ;)

Where is 64-bit Linux support for Flash Player?

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:21:58 +0000

I run 32-bit Linux but there is a very vocal group of people who really want 64-bit Linux support for Flash Player. Today there is a decent work around for running the 32-bit Flash Player on a 64-bit Linux system using the nspluginwrapper. From what I’ve heard it works fairly well on most distro’s but I haven’t heard yet how well it works with the new Flash Player 10 beta. Despite this potential work around eventually Adobe does need to natively support 64-bit Linux - and they will. This is not as simple as a recompile - otherwise there would be 64-bit support today. There is a bug already filed in the public Flash Player bug database for 64-bit support. I’d encourage you to not just go vote for that bug but also to get involved. As Tinic Uro points out in the bug comments, the missing piece for 64-bit support is open source - so you can help! Flash Player uses the open source Mozilla Tamarin VM. This VM does not yet support 64-bit Linux because all that machine code generation in the JIT compiler needs to be ported from 32-bit to 64-bit. The code is in Mozilla’s Tamarin Central Mercurial repo. This IS open source! You can help get 64-bit Linux support for Flash Player!

Adobe Open Source Presentation in New York Tomorrow

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:53:36 +0000

Tomorrow night I’ll be presenting at the New York GNU/Linux Meetup Group about Adobe Open Source - including the Adobe Flex SDK, Mozilla Tamarin, Adobe AIR (pieces like SQLite and WebKit), and BlazeDS. More details here. Hope to see you there!

Rich-Client Misconceptions & Adobe’s Open Screen Project

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:10:49 +0000

Artima recently posted two interviews with me which relate to Flex. First is an interview about Adobe’s Open Screen Project. The second is called Rich-Client Misconceptions. Also Bruce Eckel recently posted a very interesting article on Artima called “Concurrency with Python, Twisted, and Flex”. Let me know what you think about those.

Whoops. Cool Flex Typo at JavaOne 2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 23:14:41 +0000

At JavaOne 2008 the daily edition of “JavaOne Today” features an interview with Sun’s Tor Norbye saying “Java and the Flex SDK are both open sourced. I hope they both benefit from community involvement at whatever level people choose to get involved.”

Funny thing is that this is actually a quote from Chet Haase of Adobe which was featured in yesterday’s JavaOne Today. Whoops.

See a picture from Tor’s interview below.

Count on Flex – 9,547

Fri, 02 May 2008 18:06:45 +0000

9,547 = Number of members of the FlexCoders Yahoo! Group.

That’s 9,547 more reasons you can Count on Flex!

“Count on Flex” is a series of blogs about the current state of the Flex ecosystem… by the numbers.

Flex and Seam at JavaOne 2008

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:57:43 +0000

There will be numerous mini-sessions happening this year at the Adobe booth at JavaOne 2008. I’ll be doing a “Building High Performance RIAs” session and a “The Open Source RIA Stack” session. Chet Haase will be doing a “Filthy Rich [Flex] Clients” session. Bob Tierney will be doing a “LiveCycle Data Services” session and a “LiveCycle and BEA” session. Duane Nickull will also be doing sessions. We also have one guest presenter, Igor Polevoy from Exadel, who will be demonstrating Flex and Seam integration with Flamingo. Igor’s session will be at 1pm on Tuesday. Other session times are TBD - so stop by the booth on Tuesday to pickup a schedule. Also, make sure that you come to the Filthy Rich [Flex] Clients session with Stephan Jansen (of Parleys.com and JavaPolis), Chet Haase, and myself which precedes the Adobe party on Wednesday night. Stop by the booth to pickup an invite. See you there!

The Open Web: Now Sexier and Smaller

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:05:35 +0000

In the past Open Web proponents have criticized Flash and Flex because the SWF specification - while being published and publicly available - limited what readers could do with the specification. More specifically the agreement to view the specification required that readers not build programs that would run SWF files. The intentions behind this were good - Adobe does not want Flash to have inconsistent and incompatible implementations.

Today Adobe Systems has announced that they are removing those restrictions on the SWF and FLV specifications! This is very exciting news and something I’ve been lobbying for since I started working for Macromedia (actually I think I began bugging Emmy Huang about this before I started working for Macromedia). Flash has become the standard for sexier web experiences with RIAs, video on the web, and interactive web content. Today that standard is truly open!

Count on Flex – 326

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:20:17 +0000

326 = Number of Flex applications in the Flex.org Showcase.

Many Flex applications either require authentication or are behind firewalls. However the Flex.org Showcase lists publicly available Flex applications. If your Flex application is not listed, go add it today!

That’s 326 more reasons you can Count on Flex!

“Count on Flex” is a series of blogs about the current state of the Flex ecosystem… by the numbers.

Count on Flex – 1,117,019

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:20:24 +0000

1,117,019 = Number of Lines of Open Source code for Flex, BlazeDS, and Tamarin.

200,897 lines in the flex_sdk

218,789 lines in blazeds

353,644 lines in tamarin-central

343,689 lines in tamarin-tracing

That’s 1,117,019 more reasons you can Count on Flex!

“Count on Flex” is a series of blogs about the current state of the Flex ecosystem… by the numbers.

For this post I did a very basic calculation which doesn’t factor out comments and licenses. For the Flex SDK and BlazeDS I used this command:

May 1st Flex Presentation in Salt Lake City

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:40:41 +0000

I’ll be in Salt Lake City next week doing a presentation on Flex. Invitation below. I hope to see you there!

JavaOne 2008 Festivities

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:18:11 +0000

JavaOne 2008 begins in just over a week! Adobe is a sponsor again so you will find me in the booth when I’m not out at the many JavaOne parties. On Wednesday night Adobe will be hosting their party at Jillian’s. Preceding the party Chet Haase and I will be presenting a quick, fun session about Flex. More details at http://flex.org/javaone

Also on Monday at CommunityOne I’ll be doing a Lightning Talk and participating in a panel.

Talkin’ About a Revolution

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:01:49 +0000

Revolutions may be enabled by technology, but they are driven by people. Adobe’s recent announcements about Flex, Flash, and Adobe AIR on Linux are the most recent technology enablers for the software revolution that is currently underway.

Usually I’m one of the first to post about Adobe’s Linux related announcements. My trip to Bangalore, India, however, made me a little late to the party this time. In case you haven’t seen the announcements, on March 31, 2008 Adobe released an alpha version of Adobe AIR on Linux and an update to the alpha version of Flex Builder 3 for Linux (which supports building AIR applications on Linux). On the same day Adobe also announced that we joined the Linux Foundation.

Top 10 Mistakes when building Flex Applications

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:03:00 +0000

An article which Jon Rose and I wrote called “Top 10 Mistakes when building Flex Applications” was recently published on InfoQ.com. Let us know what you think!

Flex 3 Skin Transitions with Degrafa and AnimateColor

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:54:56 +0000

It is always fun when you discover new product features that you never knew existed. This happened to me last week as I was looking into Flex 3 skinning. It turns out that not only can you use a single class with states to define component skin states (like “up”, “down”, and “over” on a Button) but transitions also work with these skins! This feature has been noticed by others as well. But I figured I’d blog about it anyways - because it’s so cool!

Video: Building Turbulent AIR Applications on Linux

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:40:22 +0000

Adobe recently released an alpha version of Adobe AIR for Linux and a updated alpha 3 version of Flex Builder for Linux. I wanted to show everyone how easy it is to build and run desktop RIAs with Flex and Adobe AIR so I recorded a quick video. In the video I use Papervision3D and a component I created called “TurbulentApplication” to turn an ordinary AIR Application into an application which pitches and rolls in response to the accelerometer values on my Ubuntu laptop. While most AIR applications work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, this one only works on Linux because as far as I know Windows and Mac don’t have a way to read the accelerometer values from a file, like Linux. If you have Linux (and an accelerometer) and want to run the application you can download it here. If you want to download the source code for the TurbulentApplication component, you can get it here.

Bursting Bubbles

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:42:21 +0000

Bubblemark is a popular benchmark for some of the RIA technologies including Flex, Adobe AIR, Ajax (DHTML), Java Swing, Java FX, Silverlight, etc. I’ve been trying for a while to create a new Flex version of Bubblemark to show just how fast Flash Player and Adobe AIR are. But I’ve come to a few realizations… First, you can make benchmarks say whatever you want them to say.

When trying to optimize Bubblemark I found a few interesting things. First was that IE (and some versions of Firefox) limit the frame rate of Flash Player (and possibly other plugins). This means that while the Flash Player VM might be able to actually achieve 200+ frames per second the actual visual result might be only 60 fps. And maybe this is for good reason. Why do you need a visual frame rate faster than the refresh rate on a monitor? You don’t. And especially not for RIAs.

Around the World with Flex and Adobe AIR

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:02:03 +0000

Over the next few months I’ll be going around the world (literally) speaking about Flex and Adobe AIR. Here’s a quick rundown on where I’ll be:

Wednesday March 25 in Las Vegas: TheServerSide Java Symposium - Co-presenting with Eddie O’Neil from BEA

Thursday March 26 in Philadelphia: Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise - Porting from Web 1.0 to RIA in the Enterprise

Thursday April 3 in Bangalore, India: Adobe RIA Architect Summit 2008 - Best Practices for Building Flex/AIR applications

Video: Flex 3 / Adobe AIR 1.0 Pre-release Tour

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:01:20 +0000

In case you missed the Flex 3 / Adobe AIR 1.0 Pre-release Tour that went on around the world in January you can watch a recording of the session Serge Jespers and I did in Amsterdam. It starts out in Dutch but soon switches to English. You can skip ahead by clicking on a topic on the bottom left, then clicking the “Bekijk deze sessie”. Let me know what you think.

New Flex Screencast and VideoCoverFlow Component

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:59:35 +0000

For the Flex 2 product pages on adobe.com I recorded a screencast of a Flex app being built in 11 minutes. For Flex 3 I recorded a new version of that screencast. In the new version I used Doug McCune’s CoverFlow component but extended it to easily support playing videos. Check out a demo of the VideoCoverFlow component and right-click to download the source code. For those trying to use the VideoCoverFlow component - the implementation has changed slightly since I recorded the screencast so check out the myTube application for an example of how to use it.

3… 2… 1… LIFT OFF!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:04:58 +0000

Today Adobe launched Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0 – the most mature and comprehensive platform for Rich Internet Applications in existence.

The news of the launch is everywhere but I wanted to point out a few of the most exciting things related to this launch.

The Flex SDK and BlazeDS are now officially open source.

InfoQ has published an interview with me on the Flex 3 launch. They have also posted an interview with Kevin Hoyt on the AIR 1.0 launch as well as an overview of today’s announcements.

Announcing the Force.com Toolkit for Adobe AIR and Flex

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:53:28 +0000

Almost a year ago I began working with Ron Hess and Dave Carroll from Salesforce on the Flex Toolkit for Apex - a port of the JavaScript libraries for Salesforce.com’s web services. Since that time the toolkit has matured and been used in numerous production applications. Today I am pleased to announce the new Force.com Toolkit for Adobe AIR and Flex. This new toolkit build on the Flex Toolkit for Apex and adds additional functionality for the new Adobe AIR runtime for desktop RIAs.

Adobe AIR on Linux: Pre-Beta Testers Needed

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:02:31 +0000

Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime for deliverying rich Internet applications on the desktop. Developers using Flex, Flash, HTML, JavaScript, and Ajax can easily build applications for the desktop using Adobe AIR. As of today there have only been releases of Adobe AIR for Windows and Mac but Adobe is committed to also delivering a version for Linux. This is great news for developers like me who use Linux as their primary desktop operating system. The Adobe AIR team is now in the phase of development where they need a handful of additional testers to begin testing initial builds of AIR on Linux. If you are interested please answer the questions below in an email to helptesterairlinux at adobe dot com.

From Tags to Riches: Going from Web 1.0 to Flex

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:08:12 +0000

An article titled “From Tags to Riches: Going from Web 1.0 to Flex” which I co-authored with Shashank Tiwari has been published on InfoQ. In the article, Shashank and I walk through the steps needed to port a traditional HTML-based application to Flex. We use the Java-based Pentaho BI Dashboard as our example application. Our goal in writing the article was to make the process easy for anyone to try on their own. It should be easy to try it yourself — just download the code and other necessary pieces. Also, if you want to play with the end result, you can access the Flex application here. Let us know what you think.

Vote for my Flex bugs and I’ll vote for yours!

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:00:11 +0000

A little bug in the Flex Bug DB made it so you could only vote for open bugs - which is kinda silly since deferred bugs are marked as “closed”. Well that bug has been fixed and now it’s time for the Flex Bug Voting Exchange to commence! Here’s how it works - for each bug you vote for of mine (ones I own or just like) - I’ll vote for one of yours! Bugs in bold are worth 2 votes. Just post your bugs you want me to vote for in the comments here. But make sure you vote for mine! Ok, so go and vote for these:

Screencast: BEA Workshop + Adobe Flex Builder

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:29:48 +0000

Pieter Humphrey of BEA has posted a great screencast about using the BEA Workshop / Flex Builder bundle. He goes through a very in-depth demonstration of using all the great features of Workshop and Flex to build a RIA front-end for the Medrec Patient Application. Definitely worth watching! Thanks Pieter for posting that!

Mint Chooses Flex

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:33:31 +0000

One of the first Flex applications I built was a Flex front-end for a web based personal budgeting application called “WeBudget”. I had originally built WeBudget as a way to track how much my wife was spending on clothing. The only problem was that this required my wife to actually enter her receipts into WeBudget. I tried to make it easy by providing a WAP interface but that didn’t really work so I gave up on WeBudget. Luckily Mint, a new startup which is “Refreshing Money Management”, has come to the rescue. For those who are not familiar with Mint it’s really simple - just setup your accounts and Mint begins aggregating your transactions so that you can easily see where your money is going. It’s a safe and private way to manage your personal finances. I’ve been using it for a few months now and I love it!

Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR Pre-Release Tour

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:56:16 +0000

Today I leave for Europe where I will kick off my first few stops on the Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR Pre-Release Tour - Paris, Milan, London, Amsterdam, and Brussels. Then next week I take a week off the tour to speak at the Tampa Java User Group. The following week I resume the tour in the Midwest - Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, and St Louis. Find out more details about the tour at: flex.org/tour

Composite Shape Filter for Flex

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:59:33 +0000

Recently a friend asked me how to work around a visible depth issue in Flex. The problem is that a drop shadow and other filters only work on objects that are on the same plane . Suppose you have one object inside a Panel and another object “floating” outside of the panel but next to the object in the Panel. Everything works fine and these objects may appear next to each other until you add a filter to the objects. As you can see in the top example below, the drop shadow from the box outside of the Panel overlaps the box inside the Panel. What we would like to see is one contiguous drop shadow around both objects.

Using Flex, BEA Workshop, and BlazeDS for Enterprise RIAs

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:39:35 +0000

One of the most exciting Flex-related announcements in 2007 was the BEA Workshop and Flex Builder bundle. In case you missed it you can find coverage here, here, here, and a bunch of other places. It was big news! This was further validation that Flex is the standard for Enterprise Rich Internet Applications.

As a long-time Java developer I’ve always respected BEA. They build solid software that is the backbone of many large and mission critical systems. Their stuff just works. And their development tools are no different.

Flex Builder for Linux Alpha 2 is Out!

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:25:56 +0000

I’ve been using Alpha 1 of Flex Builder for Linux since it shipped back in October and it’s been working great! It’s great to see Alpha 2 out the door! More info here:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/releasenotes.html

Tamarin-Tracing: Mozilla’s New VM for ECMAScript 4

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:03:25 +0000

[Update: QVM was an internal Adobe codename. The new VM’s name seems to be “Tamarin-Tracing”. For more info on this new VM read the announcement by Edwin Smith. Edwin doesn’t explicitly state that the VM is for mobile devices but it is hinted at. However the research paper that Edwin references does state that this tracing type of VM is good for mobile devices.]

The mobile space has been heating up lately with Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and Sun’s JavaFX Mobile. But what about all of us developing with JavaScript 2.0 / ActionScript 3.0 / ES4? While we have been able to build for Flash Lite with Flash CS3, those of us developing with Flex haven’t had an easy way to use our existing programming knowledge to build mobile applications. Part of the reason for this is that the core language of Flex (AS3 / ES4) isn’t yet supported on mobile devices. The good news is that Adobe has just contributed a new VM targeted at mobile devices, to the Mozilla Tamarin project. Tamarin is the open source core of Flash Player 9 and will at some point be the VM in Firefox that executes JavaScript 2.0. More specifically AVM2 is the VM piece of Tamarin which executes ActionScript Byte Code (ABC). ABC can be created using the soon to be open source Flex SDK’s ASC compiler which turns AS3 (or ES4) into ABC. Unfortunately AVM2 wasn’t written to work well on mobile devices. So Adobe built Tamarin-Tracing - a new VM in Tamarin which is much better suited for non-pc devices. This is very exciting stuff!

Upcoming Events: CodeMash, RIA Jam, Flex-TurboGears Jam

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:14:59 +0000

It’s hard to believe that 2007 is almost over. It’s been an amazing year! Thanks for reading and contributing. I’m looking forward to another great year in 2008. And it all begins when I hit the road the second week of January for CodeMash 2008. I went to CodeMash last year and really enjoyed the conference, especially the water slides. :) I’ll be speaking again at CodeMash 2008 about Adobe AIR and Flex.

BlazeBench: Why you want AMF and BlazeDS

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:27:39 +0000

Update: I’ve merged BlazeBench and Census into a single demo. There is a known bug in in Firefox 3 due to a change in IFrame handling. To start the test when using FF3 you need to click on the results panel.

Today Adobe released BlazeDS, an open source Java implementation of AMF based remoting and messaging. This is huge news for the Flex, Flash, Adobe AIR and Java communities! I can’t wait to break the news with Bruce Eckel in a few hours at the JavaPolis day 2 Keynote! Check out the press release. And go download the bits. And take a look at my new BlazeBench application which shows why you want AMF and BlazeDS. Right-click on the application to find the source code on SourceForge. I’ll roll out a binary and source build in the next week or so. We have also officially published the AMF spec!

RIA Weekly 002 – More on Oracle & Flex and Java/Flex Stacks

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:22:57 +0000

I had the great pleasure of being invited to be a guest speaker on the second RIA Weekly podcast with Coté from RedMonk and Ryan Stewart. In the podcast we discuss Oracle’s recent move to Flex and RIA as well as Java and Flex. Let me know what you think.

InfoQ: Top 10 Adobe Flex Misconceptions

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:34:34 +0000

Jon Rose has just posted a great article on InfoQ about the Top 10 Adobe Flex Misconceptions. Let me know what you think about this list and my responses.

Flash Player 9 Update 3 Sim-Ships on Windows, Mac, and Linux

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:54:23 +0000

Yesterday was a monumental day for Flash Player. For the first time ever, a major release of Flash Player was simultaneously shipped for all three of the major operating systems - Windows, Mac, and Linux! This illustrates Adobe’s commitment to being truly cross-platform. There isn’t a ubiquitous platform in existence that is as committed to cross-platform compatibility as Adobe is with Flash Player. This is one of the things I love about Flash Player. Sun promised us “Write Once, Run Anywhere” with Java and yet they have never been able to really deliver it. Theoretically maybe, but in reality how many Java apps / applets do you see with the breadth of use that Flash Player has? Despite Java’s disappointing failure of true ubiquitous cross-platform compatibility I am hopeful that the OpenJDK will fix this. The OpenJDK does seem to be fixing the recent problem of Java 6 not being available on OS X.

Video Interview from Dreamforce 2007: Flex and Force.com

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:57:29 +0000

While I was at Dreamforce this year I had the chance to do a video interview with Peter Coffee from Salesforce.com. In this interview we discussed the industry momentum behind RIAs in enterprise software and how Flex, Adobe AIR, and Force.com are being combined to deliver much better user experiences in business applications. The recorded interview is below. You can also find the original post on Peter Coffee’s blog.

Can Sun Monetize Java with Transactional Memory?

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:45:16 +0000

Admittedly I know very little about concurrent computing. But the consensus seems to be that it’s the future. We can’t keep building faster CPUs so we are just going with more of them. This presents a problem for software that can’t easily be split into pieces. If some CPU intensive piece of code can’t be chopped up to run in parallel then it is constrained by the speed of a single CPU. So what is the solution? Some think that the programming models need to change to better accommodate parallel computing. The problem is that no matter how smart the programming model is at splitting stuff up you are always going to be blocked by IO operations - memory, ram, network, etc. Others think that one solution may be Transactional Memory. This can potentially alleviate the problem of threads waiting for locks.

Online Video Series: Salesforce.com & Adobe

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:38:07 +0000

A few weeks ago I was able to participate in a Chalk Talk with Salesforce.com and StakeWare. The session focused on how Rich Internet Applications, Flex, and Adobe AIR relate to the Force.com platform. With this combination of technologies companies like StakeWare can quickly build business applications that have rich user interfaces that work the same across browsers and operating systems.

PodTech recorded the session and have split it into three parts [part1, part2, part3]. I spoke in part 2. You can watch the video below or on the PodTech site.

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 7 – Sales Campaign)

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:54:43 +0000

At Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday and then on Wednesday at Larry Ellison’s keynote the seventh Flex application announced at OpenWorld was demonstrated. Like Sales Prospector and Sales Library this application, Sales Campaign, is part of the larger Oracle CRM OnDemand suite that is scheduled to go live in the first half of 2008. The Sales Campaign application allows sales people to easily create and track the success of their campaigns. Like all the other Flex applications Oracle showed over the past few days the interface is simple, clean, and effective. Exactly what users want! Great job Oracle! Here is a photo of Sales Campaign from the Tuesday session (courtesy of Todd Ruhl - my personal photographer assistant - just kidding - Todd has been an instrumental part of educating Oracle about Flex and getting Flex adopted at Oracle):

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 6 – Sales Library)

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:21:52 +0000

The second Flex application which Oracle demonstrated at Ed Abbo’s keynote on Tuesday was Sales Library. The Sales Library helps sales people organize and share their sales content. The interface is very clean and elegant. The transitions are smooth and useful. Very impressive stuff! Here is a photo of the Sales Library demo from Oracle OpenWorld (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):

Still one more Oracle Flex application left to announce. Stay tuned.

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 5 – Sales Prospector)

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:47:38 +0000

In Ed Abbo’s keynote at Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday, Oracle announced two new products that are built with Flex. The first, Sales Prospector, will go live in the first half of 2008. The Sales Prospector helps companies make better sales forecasts and in the words of Larry Ellison the software will “help the salesperson sell” instead of just forecast. The demo looked great! I can’t wait to try it out! Here is a photo from the keynote (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):

Matt Raible: Comparing JVM Web Frameworks

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:40:38 +0000

Matt Raible is one of those guys in the Java community who I’ve always respected. He has been around for a long time and contributed a ton to making the ecosystem better. He recently posted a few blogs about “Comparing JVM Web Frameworks”:

http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/comparing_web_frameworks_time_for

http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/comparing_jvm_web_frameworks_presentation

I wanted to respond to Matt’s request to provide feedback about his presentation. Due to the length of my response I decided to post it on my blog instead of in the comments on his. So here goes…

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 4 – Siebel CRM)

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:32:04 +0000

Yesterday at Oracle OpenWorld I co-presented a session with Dipock Das on Siebel CRM and Rich Internet Applications. Dipock and I talked about how Rich Internet Applications are transforming the user experience in Enterprise Software. We also presented a proof-of-concept I built with Flex in about two days. Dipock and I were able to move from his paper-based mock-up and Siebel data file to a working application with only two short conversations and two days of coding. The application, named “Contact Radar”, allows sales people to easily see how long it has been since they were in contact with their customers and potential customers. Ultimately we wanted to illustrate how my four axioms of Rich Internet Applications - Connected, Alive, Interactive, and Responsive - relate to Enterprise Software.

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 3 – Enterprise Manager)

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:18:39 +0000

At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday the Oracle Enterprise Manager team introduced their new Flex based interface for doing database query reporting. I am very excited to see this new use of Flex within an Oracle product! The audience was very enthusistic about features like rich data grids with tree interfaces and custom chart item renderers. These types of interfaces make DBAs lives much easier when they need to quickly find where there are bottlenecks and problems with their Oracle database clusters. Here is a picture from the session (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 2 – BI Publisher)

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:25:49 +0000

At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday there were Flex applications EVERYWHERE! There are even more to come today but before that I need to show off a few others from yesterday that we were able to grab pictures of.

These days how can you do data visualization without Flex? With the number of BI companies now using Flex it seems you can’t. I’m glad to see Oracle’s BI team using Flex and I’m looking forward to seeing more sexy dashboard goodness from them soon. Here’s a rather blurry photo of the new Flex based BI Publisher Dashboard (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):

Oracle Chooses Flex (part 1)

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:21:30 +0000

Today I’m at Oracle OpenWorld watching a number of keynotes and sessions and I’m seeing Flex EVERYWHERE! First up was the Monday Keynote with Charles Phillips where Oracle demonstrated a new Flex based MetaLink. Back when I was a DBA/SysAdmin/Programmer I had to use MetaLink to get support from Oracle. Working with the interface was like a trip to dentist. Not fun. Well, today Oracle demonstrated the new version of MetaLink built with Flex. It looks great and using it is like a trip to the day spa. Great job Oracle! Here’s a photo of the new interface courtesy of Todd Ruhl:

Exchange MAPI Connector for Evolution

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:31:49 +0000

Just a quick note to say how excited I am that Evolution will be getting a MAPI Connector! I’ve been using Evolution with Exchange since 2003. Thankfully it works - but for me it crashes quite often. So I’m really excited about the prospect of a better Exchange connector. Screen scraping is just too brittle and too slow. This should also improve offline support. Currently before I get on a plane I sync Outlook in VMWare. That works but I don’t care much for Outlook and VMWare is a killer on my battery life. With this improvement to Evolution and the improvements that are happening with the video drivers on Linux, things are shaping up for Linux on the Desktop. Could 2008 really be the year of Linux on the Desktop? Just kidding. I’ve been happily using Linux as my primary Desktop since like 1996. It isn’t without some annoyances and required maintenance. But neither is any other OS. And at least with Linux it’s easier to fix stuff myself.

Speaking at CodeMash 2008: “RIAs – Beyond the Buzz”

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:05:05 +0000

I just received notification that I was accepted as a speaker for CodeMash 2008! This will be my second year speaking about Flex at CodeMash. Last year was a ton of fun! Between sessions we would head down to the indoor water park for an Open Spaces session on the Lazy River or for some great conversations while waiting in line to try surfing the standing wave. There were a ton of fun people at the conference and we even had some time to do an Open Spaces session on using Flex and TurboGears together. This year I'll be speaking about Flex and Adobe AIR in a session named "RIAs - Beyond the Buzz". With lots of great people and an indoor water park, CodeMash 2008 is a conference you definitely don't want to miss!

My Dreamforce Keynote Demos

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:50:32 +0000

At Salesforce.com’s 2007 developer conference, called Dreamforce, I did a few minutes of demos during the day two keynote with Marc Benioff and Bruce Chizen. I showed three real applications built with Flex, Adobe AIR, and Salesforce.com. It was a fun experience and I only had a few minor demo glitches. Thanks to PodTech the video is below. My demos are about four minutes in.

http://www.podtech.net/home/4418/adobe-flex-and-air-with-bruce-chizen-a-dreamforce07-keynote

Online Videos: Jive Software Talking About Flex

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:20:09 +0000

Jive Software has always stood out to me as being a company that really cares about the user experience. I remember way back nearly 10 years ago when Jive Forums was one of the only (or at least most popular) commercial products built on the Java stack. Recently I was able to meet some of the Jive folks when I presented at the Portland Java User Group. You can tell that they are passionate about creating great software. So it’s great to see that Jive Software is embracing Flex!

FREE RIA Developer Camp – Nov 5 in San Francisco – Sign up now!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:49:46 +0000

I’ll be presenting at the RIA Developer Camp on Nov 5th in San Francisco with Christophe Coenraets. Go sign up now before it’s full!

Building an Adobe AIR application on salesforce.com with Flex 3

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:02:42 +0000

One of my old blogs has been turned into a full article on the Adobe Developer Connection and updated for Flex 3 Beta 2 & Adobe AIR Beta 2:

Building an Adobe AIR application on salesforce.com with Flex 3

Also a recording of the session that I hosted at Dreamforce has been posted on the Apex Developer Network:

Make Your App *Bling*: Build Amazing Salesforce Apps Using Adobe Tech. (click on “Apex & Beyond” then scroll down to the session)

What is a Rich Internet Application?

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:06:00 +0000

The more software experiences become like the natural world the more users are pleased with those experiences. One of the most powerful, understandable, and universal concepts in computing is the idea of a desktop containing files and folders. Users embraced this metaphor in their software because it modeled their natural world experience.

There is a paradigm shift underway. In this shift, developers are creating user interfaces which more closely model the natural world. Since 2002, the term used to describe these types of software applications is “Rich Internet Applications”, or RIAs. Technologies like Ajax, Flex, Silverlight, Adobe AIR, and JavaFX are growing in popularity as this shift to RIAs gains momentum.

Flex Builder for Linux!!!

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 00:03:27 +0000

I love vi. I’ve been doing Flex development on Linux for about three years - mostly with vi. But to be honest when building complex applications it is nice to have things like code hinting and integrated debugging. I’m sure you *could* make vi do that with Flex but I am not brave enough to attempt to figure that out. So I’m extremely excited that Adobe is releasing a version of Flex Builder for Linux! You can download Flex Builder for Linux from the labs.adobe.com site right now!

Flex and AIR: The New Standard for Business Application UIs

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:42:58 +0000

Last week I attended Dreamforce, salesforce.com’s annual developer conference. It was exciting to see all the innovation going on with business applications. Much of that innovation is centered around Flex and Adobe AIR. In fact 18 of the 32 companies in the salesforce.com incubator are using Flex and AIR! Does that give you an idea of where the momentum is for companies building business applications?

At the Dreamforce Day 2 keynote, Workday CEO Dave Duffield gave a demo of the new Flex-based interface to their ERP software. Duffield said multiple times that they have standardized on Flex as their UI platform! A while back I was in early meetings with Workday that focused on their possible use of Flex. I showed them my Census RIA Benchmark and some of the other amazing things they could do with Flex. I’m really glad they have decided to fully embrace Flex for their UI. Compared with the other technologies they were considering, I’m sure their developers and their customers will be much more pleased with their experience.

Flash 9 Now at 93.3% Adoption

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:08:53 +0000

Emmy Huang just posted a note about the Flash adoption statistics as of September 2007. Flash 9 is now at 93.3% adoption! This is great news for Flex developers! If you develop with Flex 2 or the upcoming Flex 3, 93.3% of your visitors can run your applications without any hassle of having to update Flash. Now why haven’t Sun and Microsoft published their statistics so that developers are able to compare the adoption of the different RIA platforms?

Flex 3 and Silverlight

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:26:56 +0000

InfoQ recently published an interview with me about Flex 3 and Silverlight. In the interview I talked about what I see are some of the differences between Flex and Silverlight. After reading my words again I realized that they may come across as critical of Silverlight. I don’t at all intend them to be taken that way. Silverlight is helping to bring the idea of richer and better user interfaces to the masses. This vision is something I believe in and I’m glad that Microsoft and Sun (with JavaFX) have all now embraced the RIA vision and are making significant investments to make it reality. Silverlight and JavaFX, have validated the programming and deployment models which Flex uses. The combination of things like a declarative language, a procedural language, cross-platform bytecode, a high performance VM, vector graphics, and a web browser plugin have been the foundation of Flex based RIAs since 2004. Silverlight and JavaFX have validated that this is the best way to build a successful RIA platform. So please don’t read my comments on Silverlight and JavaFX as being critical. I’m excited that Microsoft and Sun now believe in the RIA vision. But I’m also glad that I get to evangelize the RIA solution which is proven and available today.

Testing AIR Applications on Linux

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:18:28 +0000

*\* WARNING - THIS IS TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED, UNENDORSED, AND A COMPLETE HACK **

I tried for a while to get the actual Adobe AIR runtime installed via wine on Linux. But I wasn’t able to get it to work. Then I realized that I don’t really need the whole runtime to just test my AIR applications. All I need is ADL - the testing tool for AIR applications. So I gave it a try on a Salesforce.com project I’m working on:

Flex Development on Linux Tip: Use Epiphany not Firefox

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:07:54 +0000

I am usually on Linux when I develop Flex applications and I recently discovered a cool trick that makes development even easier. Use Epiphany as the browser you run / test your applications in instead of Firefox. Here’s a few reasons:

If Epiphany crashes because your app goes crazy it doesn’t take your normal browser and all its sessions down with it.
Epiphany uses inotify or a file watch and automatically refreshes when your application changes. It saves quite a bit of time to have the application already loaded before I can even switch to my browser.

Flex Workshop Code – YouTube Player / MVC Example

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:36:52 +0000

This past weekend I did a three hour workshop on Flex at the Rich Web Experience. We started with some very simple stuff and ended with a YouTube Video Player that includes a Draggable Panel, Live Reflection, and a simple Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. You can see the application here:

http://www.jamesward.org/youtube/youtube.html

You can get the code by right-clicking on the application and selecting “View Source”. If you want to compile that code you will also need NJ’s DragPanel and Reflector components available from:

Bruce Eckel: Creating Flex Components

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:32:25 +0000

Bruce Eckel has posted a terrific article on “Creating Flex Components”. As usual Bruce is able to promote understanding of deep technical topics through simple examples and clear narrative.

Article Summary:

As Joe Nuxoll of JBuilder and JavaPosse fame will tell you (given the slightest provocation), one place where the Java designers completely dropped the ball is in Java’s component model. This becomes especially clear when comparing it with a system like Flex which has full language support for components.

Flex & Ajax Developers: 8 Days Left to Win a $100,000 Vacation

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:43:56 +0000

Step 1) Build a kick-a AIR application with Flex and/or Ajax

Step 2) Submit it to the AIR Developer Derby contest

Step 3) ???

Step 4) Profit!

Unfortunately I can’t participate because I’m an Adobe employee. But I wish you good luck and if you win please let me know if you need a travel companion (or 2 because we should take my wife too). :)

Census RIA Benchmark Updated with GZip and Laszlo

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:21:16 +0000

I’ve just posted the newest version of the Census RIA Benchmark application which compares data loading via various methods in Ajax, Flex, and now Laszlo. When I first began talking about the results of these benchmarks and heavily advocating AMF for large data sets some people suggested that my results were flawed because I wasn’t using gzip compression on the text streams. I have always wondered how many people actually use gzip but these critics seemed to indicate that everyone was using it. Based on some past experiments I postulated that AMF would still be significantly faster than using gzip. There is a trade off when you use gzip. The amount of data that has to cross the wire is significantly smaller but there is increased latency on the server to do the gzip and on the client to ungzip. Sometimes this trade off is worth it. Unless you are using AMF. AMF uses a very basic form of compression that is extremely fast, faster even than just creating XML or JSON strings. And of course much faster than creating big strings and then compressing/decompressing them. Now there is definitive proof of this. AMF is still by far the fastest method for loading large data sets in RIAs. Not only is it faster for loading the data, Tamarin makes client-side operations like sorts and filters extremely fast. All of this is evident if you spend some time with the Census application. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Pot of Gold at the Flex / AIR Jam

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 03:04:26 +0000

This week I have been in Crested Butte, Colorado at the Flex / AIR Jam. It’s been a great event for everyone. Those new to Flex have learned a ton and those with more experience have been able to extend their knowledge by working on real projects. Over the past two days I’ve made considerable progress on two different projects. One project is the new version of the Census - RIA Benchmark app. I’ll be posting the new version with GZip support and a new Laszlo test tomorrow. The other project I’ve been working on is an enterprise Flex application framework kinda like a portal. This project is named “Anvil”. The goals of Anvil are to support large Flex application deployment scenarios, illustrate best practices for application partitioning, and be a reusable open source framework for portal-like applications. I’ll be publishing more info on Anvil in the next few weeks.

Adobe MAX 2007 – It’s about the people

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:15:02 +0000

For those who don’t know, MAX is Adobe’s yearly developer conference for products including Flex and AIR. There will be tons of great presentations by many of our engineers. Beyond the presentations what I enjoy most is the social aspect. It’s the conversations that happen between the customers, evangelists, engineers, pm’s, execs, etc that make MAX great. I hope that you will be able to join the conversation that will happen at Adobe MAX 2007. If you are planning on going, sign up by tomorrow so that you can take advantage of the early bird discount.

New Article about Flex and Java

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:07:21 +0000

My friend Jon Rose has written a great article on using Flex and Java together. Jon is a long time Java programmer. We were coding Java web apps together back in the days before Struts. It’s great to see Jon making statements like “Flex is the most obvious and elegant solution currently available to Java developers.” The article also references some of my code from the Census App to show how easy it is to integrate Java & Flex. If you are a Java programmer you should definitely read this article.

Help me fix my blog [solved]

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:17:29 +0000

One of the “problems” with using Flex so much is that I get used to having a simple, predictable layout mechanism. I seem to have forgotten how to do just about anything in HTML. So can someone help me fix the Digg, Reddit, and Share This stuff below? I’ve tried and tried and can’t figure out how to get the dang things to align correctly. Ideally they would align to the bottom of a div or something. Gosh it’s really embarrassing admitting publicly that I can’t do HTML anymore. But since you have already seen how bad this blog looks, you probably already guessed that. :) Oh well. Please help.

Flex & Flash as Competitors to Java?

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:19:04 +0000

As [previously discussed][1], my friend Joshua from Sun [recently blogged][2] about how the consumer JRE will take market share from Flash in 2008. Today Sameer Tyagi ~~, also from Sun,~~ [blogged][3] about problems with using Flex to front-end JAX-WS. Both posts seem to insinuate Flash and Flex as competitors to Java. Yet for me Java and Flex have always been a perfect match.

The continued success of Flash and Flex only helps to better position Java in the enterprise. Adobe is not a threat to Java’s continued dominance on the server. In fact many Adobe enterprise products are built on the Java platform including Flex Data Services. If you must have an enemy then I suggest targeting those who actually have something to gain by Java losing market share in the enterprise. That is definitely not Adobe.

2008 – The Year of Client Java?

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:48:38 +0000

My friend Joshua from Sun has predicted that “2008 will be the year that client Java starts taking market share from Flash”. This is a pretty bold prediction reminding me of when I used to hear this same sort of statement about Desktop Linux… “1999 will be the year of Desktop Linux”.

Don’t get me wrong… I love Desktop Linux. Been using it since about 1993. And I love Java. Been using it since 1996. But lets be honest about the reality of client Java, desktop Linux, anything that touches the mass consumer space. It has to just work. I’m thankful that Ubuntu and the Consumer JRE are headed this direction. But Flex and Flash are there today! Flash just works. So much so that in the first nine months, Flash Player 9 reached 84% adoption in the US and is likely well beyond 90% currently. That is a platform you can rely on. One you can build on today. Tons of consumer Flex applications have already been deployed. And tons more are not visible because they are still being built or behind the corporate firewall.

Flex/AIR Jam & RIA Summit – Last Day for Early Bird Discount

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:55:30 +0000

Today is the last day you will be able to get the early bird discount on the Flex/AIR Jam and RIA Summit conferences in Crested Butte. Also, attendees of the Flex/AIR Jam will get a free copy of Flex Builder! The Jam will be a fantastic way to learn how to use or extend your knowledge of Flex and AIR. Bring your laptop and spend two days of hands-on, coached coding. The RIA Summit will be a three day Open Space style event focused on discussion about Rich Internet Applications. I’ve been to events run by Bruce Eckel in Crested Butte before. They are the best events I’ve been to and highly recommend them. Go sign up today to get the early bird discount. I hope to see you there!

Tutorial: Salesforce.com on AIR with Flex 3

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:02:58 +0000

This tutorial has been updated to Flex 3 Beta 2. The new version is now on the Adobe Developer Connection:
Building a standalone Adobe AIR application on salesforce.com with Flex 3

The excitement around using Flex & AIR to build amazing front-ends for Salesforce applications continues to grow. Nitobi has posted [a cool AIR application][1] that uses the Salesforce Ajax library. Also Dave Carroll of Salesforce has posted [a great blog][2] about why Flex & AIR developers should care about the Apex platform. Back in April I posted [the first version][3] of a tutorial about how to use the Flex Toolkit for Apex to build AIR (was Apollo) applications. Since the Flex 3 and AIR betas were released recently it’s time to update that tutorial. So if you want to start building some sexy interfaces on top of salesforce.com follow along…

Slides from UbuntuLive

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:05:49 +0000

On Sunday I was in Portland for UbuntuLive. I had two sessions, one focused on what I call “The Irrelevant Operating System” and the other was about building cross-platform applications on Linux with Flex. This was the second Linux conference I’ve spoken at. I hope to speak at more because Linux has been an important part of my computing life. I was trying to remember when I first started using Linux. I think it was in 1993 around the Slackware 1.0 release. I’ve used Linux as my primary desktop pretty consistently since then. Today I use Gentoo and Ubuntu. It’s pretty exciting to see what Ubuntu is doing with Linux. They will continue to lead the way and bring Desktop Linux to many more people. It was a great conference and hanging out with some great people Sunday night at Kell’s Irish Pub in Portland was delightful.

Summer of Flex and AIR

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:19:46 +0000

There is a ton of great Flex and AIR events going on over the next few months. Here’s the run down of events I’ll be at:

The FREE Flex Camp is July 27th in San Francisco. This is going to be a great way to learn more about Flex. Spots are going fast so go register today! I’ll be at this event so hopefully I will get to meet some of you in person.

TriJUG Presentation and Flex Sprint in North Carolina

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 04:18:09 +0000

On July 16th I will be presenting at the TriJUG in North Carolina beginning at 6:30pm. There will be some great give-aways including a copy of Flex Builder 2. Then on Tuesday July 17th, buni.org and I will be hosting a half day Flex Sprint in Durham. This will be a great opportunity to get some hands-on Flex training, FOR FREE! Andy Oliver and I will be helping as many people who show up, learn Flex. You just need to bring a laptop (with power adapter & wireless). Festivities begin at 8:30 and end at noon. We will meet on the lower floor of Bean Traders Coffee.

Cringely on AIR, Flash, and Flex

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:07:52 +0000

My all time favorite journalist, Robert X. Cringely, has just published his weekly PBS article, this time discussing the future of Adobe’s platform technologies. It’s a great read and great press for our (Adobe) platform. Let me know what you all think about his opinions.

Salesforce Apollo Widget

Tue, 29 May 2007 22:12:33 +0000

Dave Carroll of salesforce.com has posted a very cool Apollo Widget that pulls data from Salesforce and uses the Flex Toolkit for Apex.

Very cool stuff!

Salesforce Flex / Apollo Sample – Offline Data Sync

Wed, 23 May 2007 18:45:51 +0000

On Monday I presented at the Salesforce Developer Conference in Santa Clara. It was a great conference! The keynote was especially exciting because it kinda turned into the Flex/Apollo show. Near the middle of his keynote Marc Benioff went on about how great Adobe is for innovating with Flex and Apollo. He then brought Kevin Lynch on stage who did his usual Apollo demos, which filled the crowd with “Ooos” and “Ahhhs”. Then they brought up someone who built some amazing Salesforce based applications. And guess what? It was a Flex app running inside a Salesforce S-Control! Then Adam Gross and Parker Harris from Salesforce took the stage to present even more Flex applications! It felt for a second like I was at Max!

Flex and Apollo in Vegas

Wed, 23 May 2007 02:03:10 +0000

This week I’m in Vegas for a few presentations. First one is at the Interop conference on Wednesday. Interop is a fun place for me because I get to hang out with networking / sys admin folks. In a past life I was a sys admin (thus the reason why I love vi). :)

On Thursday night I am presenting at the Vegas Adobe User Group and really looking forward to meeting some of the Flex friends I’ve only known via email, blogs, twitter, etc.

Jon Rose is Thinking in Flex!

Wed, 23 May 2007 00:41:24 +0000

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when the guy I learned Java web programming with starts saying things like:

“For me, Flex is clearly the way to go.”

The whole article is a great read for those evaluating the Rich Internet Application landscape.

Jon, we are glad to have you “Thinking in Flex” and can’t wait to see what you build!

Bruce Eckel eSeminar

Thu, 10 May 2007 00:02:29 +0000

Bruce and I recently hosted an eSeminar about Flex and Java. Check out the recording:

http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p87391680/

Eckel at JavaOne – Salesforce Conference – Google Tech Talk – San Diego JUG

Mon, 07 May 2007 21:19:31 +0000

There’s so much fun stuff going on it’s hard to keep my blog up-to-date. But I did want to note a couple of things…

Bruce Eckel will be at JavaOne! He will spend some time in the Adobe booth and some time at various sessions. But the big news is that he and I will be co-presenting a short session before the Adobe Party on Wednesday night. This will be a fun thirty minute session that will be entertaining and educational. Too bad this isn’t an official JavaOne session, but I guess Sun doesn’t want me presenting about Flex at JavaOne (They rejected my three submissions but possibly for other reasons.) Following the short session will be the party. Food, drinks, and hanging out with Bruce Eckel! Stop by the Adobe booth at JavaOne to get your official invitation (which I think you will need to get in).

Ajax and Flex Data Loading Benchmarks

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:42:30 +0000

For close to a year I’ve been working (in my infrequent spare time) on an application that shows differences in data loading for RIAs (Rich Internet Applications), comparing Ajax methods, Ajax frameworks, and various Flex methods. The results are pretty surprising. The screenshot below is from a test run I did with the server running locally. (Note for the screenshot below: All tests except Dojo were 5000 rows, while the Dojo test was 500 rows.)

Open Source Flex: Top 10 Reasons To Rejoice

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:09:20 +0000

Flex is going Open Source! This is really, really exciting news! I’ve been looking forward to this moment since before I worked at Macromedia. This will certainly change RIA programming in a major way. But what does this mean for you:

There will be a formal process for contributing to Flex.
Your voice is important. Join the Open Source Flex Google Group.
You aren’t locked into a single vendor’s monetization strategy. So is Flex now part of the “Open Web”? I think so.

The Open Source Flex and Apollo Toolkit for Salesforce.com

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:28:17 +0000

A few months ago I met with Salesforce.com about Flex and Apollo. They had begun building some Flex applications that used the Flex Ajax Bridge to communicate with Salesforce. This worked but they wanted to be able to more easily build Flex and Apollo applications. So I took their JavaScript library and did an initial port to ActionScript. Surprisingly the code ported pretty easily. It was actually a fascinating experiment. ActionScript 3 is based on the same specification as JavaScript 2, so in theory this kind of thing should be pretty trivial — especially if the code being ported doesn’t do much with the browser DOM. That was the situation in this case because the Salesforce JavaScript library talks to their backend via XHR and doesn’t do much with the browser DOM. Once I had an initial port done including authentication and query support Ron and Dave from Salesforce.com cleaned everything up, added better object typing, built complex examples, and developed an Apollo demo. Everything has been going on under a semi-secret SourceForge project, code named Mavericks.

My Recent Flex & Apollo Adventures

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:48:06 +0000

Sorry this blog has been pretty stagnant lately. Things have been totally crazy. I’ve been touring the country speaking at Java User Groups and other conferences. The JUGs have been really fun. It’s amazing to see how quickly the Java crowd falls in love with Flex, like I did a few years ago. There are still more JUGs, conferences, and eSeminars coming up so please check out the schedule and see if I happen to be in your home town sometime soon. If you will be around the Bay Area for JavaOne, we will be throwing a huge bash with Bruce Eckel. The details are still being finalized, but stay tuned. Also coming in October is the annual Adobe developer conference, called MAX. It will be full of top notch Flex sessions by many of our star engineers. Definitely not something you want to miss. In May I’ll be doing a triple header in Vegas; Las Vegas Adobe User Group, Nevada Java User Group, and Interop. Hopefully some of these events are in your home town since I’d love to meet you all in person!

Eckel Flex eSeminar; Buni Joins java.net; Twitter Addiction

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:45:50 +0000

Yesterday was an exciting day! Bruce Eckel and I hosted an eSeminar about Flex & Java. We had a few technical difficulties, but overall it was very good. You can watch the recording here:

https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a227210/p16565134/

Bruce and I have a few more eSeminars coming up, find out more info here:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539&loc=en_us

Also yesterday the Open Source Buni Meldware Communication Suite joined the Java.net community. This is a great step forward for the project, which uses Flex for it’s Webmail client. More info from Andy Oliver:

Reusable Ant Task: Compile Flex If Source Was Updated

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:37:43 +0000

I’m working on a project that compiles 11 Flex applications. My Ant build file was getting pretty messy and I was continually commenting out files that I didn’t want to build. By using an Ant macro and some uptodate trickery I was able to significantly decrease my build times when I am only updating files for a single application. The macro also helped to make the build much more manageable.

How I Overcame My Fear of Flash

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:12:01 +0000

Long ago I remember the first Flash site I ever saw-spinning gears replaced typically boring site navigation and sound illuminated a previously silent web. My jaw dropped and I said to myself, “I want to build these kinds of websites!” After playing with Flash Professional for days, I realized that my mathematically inclined brain just could not output the kind of beauty that I began to see all over the Flash powered web. I gave up and resorted to building very ugly HTML interfaces. Not because I didn’t want them to look better but rather, it was just too much work and I lacked the skill.

Faster Flex Applications: Shrink Your RSLs

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:23:07 +0000

A few days ago Metal pointed out to me in a comment on my blog that by using the SWFs inside a SWC, my RSLs are much larger than they need to be. Sure enough he was right. When you use compc to create a SWC, the SWF inside the SWC contains a lot of unnecessary stuff when used as an RSL. That stuff is necessary to create an application which uses the SWC, so don’t go ditching compc. Here is what you need to do if you want to have size optimized RSLs:

Fun with Easing Functions in Flex

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:43:48 +0000

Last week I was doing an impromptu session at Slivafug when I discovered Easing Functions in Flex. I love it when after almost three years with a technology I can still just stumble across something amazingly cool! Easing functions allow you to apply non-linear motion to effects. There are many types of effects which you could apply easing functions to, but I’ve only touched the surface by playing with Move effects and Series Interpolation on charts. I’ve created a little demo application to show off Flex’s built-in easing functions:

Flex Quickies: JUG Tonight, Eckel, Test Drive & more

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:01:22 +0000

Tonight I’m speaking at the BayCHI / SV JUG in Mountain View - Starts at 7pm, but you need to either get there early or pre-register if you haven’t already done so.

Bruce Eckel on “Hybridizing Java” with Flex

Screencast of Bruce Eckel and I creating an expressive application using Flex, Hibernate, and XFire

Christophe Coenraets’s new Tomcat based Flex Test Drive

New Yahoo Group just for us Java Flexcoders

Mutual Authentication: Prevents Phishing Attacks?

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:57:44 +0000

One of my credit card companies just implemented Mutual Authentication for their web site. I think this is a fantastic idea since it can help to protect users from phishing attacks. The hard part will be training users to not enter their credentials unless they see the tokens they selected.

Continue reading to see how Juniper implemented Mutual Authentication.

Look Out Java Swing: Flex has a Napkin Skin

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:56:24 +0000

Back in the day Swing was so cool because you could make your app look like a napkin. Of course most of us don’t think much about desktop apps or applets anymore, so the Napkin craze faded away. But I’m here to say that The Napkin Skin is back and better than ever! And now it’s based on web technology that people actually have and use. For more info about how Eylon Stroh created this work of art, check out his blogs:

Bay Area Flex Events: Meet the Flex Team & SV JUG

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:33:00 +0000

This Thursday night you can meet the Flex team at the SF Adobe office. Come and hang out with the people who actually write classes like UIComponent (8406 lines), Container (5055 lines), and DataGrid (4884 lines). And you can also meet people who have never written an AS class longer than 100 lines - like me! Get all the details and RSVP:

http://flexteam.eventbrite.com/

Also coming up February 7th I am presenting on Sexy Web Apps with Java, Mozilla Tamarin, and Flex in Mountain View.

Flex and TurboGears at CodeMash – DisplayShelf Widget

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:40:46 +0000

This past week I spoke at the CodeMash conference. It was a really great event full of stimulating conversation. Even more fun than trying to surf in the wave machine was an Open Spaces style session that Kevin Dangoor (creator of TurboGears) and I hosted. We had planned to just sneak off into a corner and turn Ely Greenfield‘s DisplayShelf component into a TurboGears Widget. However, word quickly spread that we were going to do this and everyone wanted to watch as we coded. We had a bunch of fellow geeks huddled around every spare laptop and monitor we could find. I shared my screen with VNC so that everyone could watch what Kevin and I were doing. It was by far the best geek-out session I have had in a long time! Check out a screenshot of the DisplayShelf widget in a TurboGears application, showing a picture of our geek-out session:

Continue reading to learn more about what we built, how we built it, and how you can use it…

My Tribute to Flash 9 on Linux: Compiz Like Wobbly Windows

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:36:52 +0000

I’m sitting in Caribou Coffee in Ann Arbor Michigan looking out at beautiful ice covered trees glistening in the sunlight. It’s Jan 17th 2007 and this day is going down in history! Today is the day Flash Player 9 was officially released for Linux! This is HUGE! The web allows anyone with a PC to engage with information and others. Flash has always pushed the limits of how that engagement happens, most recently with video. Even though many Desktop Linux users prefer free software, Adobe has still committed to making Flash work on Linux. I think this is noble. Do you see MS or Apple doing this with their platforms? By having Flash 9 for Linux, Desktop Linux is made all that much better. I have been using Linux as a desktop since ‘96 and without Flash I would be missing out on some pretty amazing stuff. Some will say “But Flash isn’t Open Source”. You are right. But if you don’t want to run proprietary software, rather than complain, go help Gnash. Ok, now that I’ve espoused my religious views, lets move on to the cool stuff!

Screencast – The Web Sig

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:44:29 +0000

Back in November I did a presentation at The Web Sig (now Silicon Valley Web Builder). Due to a bad Camtasia setting the Apollo demos don’t show up though. Sorry. Let me know what you think.

Bruce Eckel is Thinking in Flex!

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:39:04 +0000

Update: You can download the source code for this screencast here.

Recently Bruce Eckel and I had the chance to record a screencast of us pair programming with Flex & TurboGears:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/eckel_video.html

The results were great - a fantastic UI on top of a simple back-end! Both Bruce and I learned a lot creating this screencast and I hope you will enjoy watching it.

“Make Me Sexy Flexy!” Demo From JavaPolis

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:30:36 +0000

The buzz around Flex at JavaPolis last week was unreal. It’s great to see so many Java developers get excited about the sexy UIs you can so easily build with Flex! I even had numerous people approach me throughout the week and show me some cool Flex app they built in their first day of Flex programming. Java developers everywhere are falling in love with Flex!

All the Flex / JavaPolis blogs not listed on my previous post:

Flex at JavaPolis – “Umm That’s Sexy!”

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:53:04 +0000

Christoph Rooms and I have been showing off Flex all week at JavaPolis. Everyone is loving it! Check out the crowd of people watching demos and winning shwag (click the image below to see more pictures from JavaPolis):

Also we have had numerous people blogging about Flex at JavaPolis:

JavaPolis - Building Sexy Web Apps with Flex
- POJO Mojo and Sexy Flex
  - Flex at JavaPolis
    - Flex at JavaPolis 2006
      - James Ward and Christoph Rooms at JavaPolis
      This week at the conference Jon from BEA even built a Flex app with vi and the free Flex SDK! Nice work Jon!

Sexy Web Apps, Free Rubik’s Cubes, and iPods at JavaPolis

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:12:31 +0000

What more could a nerd want? Next week I will be at JavaPolis talking about Building Sexy Web Apps. Attendees will receive a free Flex Edition Rubik’s Cube! The first person to solve theirs will win an iPod nano! Then on Thursday at 4:10pm, bring your Flex Edition cubes to the Adobe booth for speedcubing madness! Fastest speedcuber gets an iPod nano! If I still have any cubes left on Friday, you will also be able to get them at either of my sessions; Adobe Flex 2.0 & Java : RIA for the Enterprise or Flex 2.0 @ Work in combination with Spring and Hibernate. Better start practicing your speedcubing! These Flex Edition cubes are much harder than regular Rubik’s cubes! See you in Antwerp!

Over 5000 Flexcoders!

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 23:51:20 +0000

I just noticed that the flexcoders Yahoo! Group now has over 5000 members! That’s pretty amazing! This list was founded almost 3 years ago on March 17, 2004. But my first post wasn’t until January 17, 2005. So I am but a newbie. Congrats to all those early founders who started the revolution and have continued answering questions for years and years. A special shout-out to Matt Chotin who has posted 3407 messages! Wow!

Flash 9 on 64bit Linux in 2 Commands

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:06:54 +0000

I’ve heard it so many times… “Flash 9 doesn’t work on 64bit Linux” So when I loaded 64bit Gentoo Linux my new Merom based Intel Core 2 Duo, I really was expecting an adventure. Turns out that it was actually pretty uneventful. It worked first try without any problems and in only 2 commands. Here’s what I did..

First I added the net-www/netscape-flash package to /etc/portage/package.unmask

sudo vi /etc/portage/package.unmask

Then I emerged Flash 9 & the Netscape Plugin Wrapper

Please Mind the Gap; Between Flash Versions

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:49:06 +0000

Currently the latest version of Flash 9 for Windows & Mac is 9.0.28.0 and for Linux (currently in beta) it’s 9.0.21.78. Notice that that third digit is different? That’s mostly because Flash 9 for Linux doesn’t yet support full screen. Unless your application is unusable without full screen, then please be nice to us folks on Linux and don’t tell your Flash detection script to require 9.0.28. This is an easy mistake to make. Even we (Adobe) recently did this with the Kuler app. Which currently doesn’t work on Linux due to an evil 28 in the detection script. If you really do need 9.0.28, then the right thing to do would be to tell your detection script to require it for Windows & Mac, and just require 9.0.0 for Linux. Otherwise we end up having to write GreaseMonkey scripts to de-28 offending pages. And nobody wants to join the list of sites which need de-28 grease.

HowTo: Reduce the size of your Flex app

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:26:50 +0000

Flex 2 added a neat little feature which allows you to load Runtime Shared Libraries, from other domains. And since the browser caches these libraries in theory we could all point to a central set of Flex 2 Framework RSLs and users of your application would only have to download the RSLs the first time they went to an application which used them. Before I show you how to make this work, lets talk about the caveats… First and most important, THIS IS UNSUPPORTED BY ADOBE. While the Flex team is working on a better, more permanent solution to this problem, this is really a hack and despite the fact that I am using this in my applications, neither I or Adobe warranty or support the use of this in any way. Second, since there is no failover mechanism, until we find a better home for the RSLs, if you choose to point to my hosted RSLs, your application will be at the mercy of my web server. Third, if someone hacks my web server and uploads new cracked malware RSLs, or uses a man-in-the-middle attack to replace the RSLs in flight, then you (and I) have been p0wned. Fourth, I, James Ward, may have included modified Flex framework files which do bad things, like track user behavior/input and report them back to my server. While I promise I have not done this, if you choose to use these RSLs, you are putting your trust in my promise.

So despite the caveats, I still think this hack is sufficient enough for many applications. Flex engineering is really working hard to make this work for everyone. In the mean time what is outlined here may likely help you to dramatically reduce SWF size. Read on to find out how.

Screencast: Watch a Flex app built in 11 minutes

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:15:31 +0000

[Update: This screencast has been updated for Flex 3. Read more about it here.]

Many times I am asked “Where do I start learning about Flex?”. Most of the time I point them to flex.org as a starting point. However it is often just easier to see the product in action. So I recorded a screencast of me building a simple Flex app with Flex Builder. Here it is:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/media/flexapp/

I hope this is helpful to those of you new to Flex. After you watch the screencast, download Flex Builder and give it a try. If you find yourself saying things like “Wow! Coding is fun again!” or “I had no idea RIA programming was so easy!”, Welcome to Flexland! A few years ago I found myself in Flexland and to me it’s like being in the mountains… Once you are there, you never want to be anywhere else. :)

Flex Widgets from WidgetsLive!

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 00:12:11 +0000

This morning I had the opportunity to present at the WidgetsLive! Conference about Flex and widgets. I showed a few examples using Ely Greenfield’s DisplayShelf component. One example pulled in images from Flickr. Check out the demo and the code. I also was thinking it would be cool to throw some YouTube videos into the DisplayShelf component. After a few minutes I was able to make it work with the exception that I couldn’t get the reflection to not flicker during video playback. I’ll need to get help from Ely to fix that, so for now I’ve disabled the real-time reflector. You can see the demo of the YouTube DisplayShelf widget and get the code. I also quickly turned one of the Display Shelf apps into an desktop widget using Apollo. I hope all the attendees enjoyed the session and for those who weren’t there, enjoy the demos!

Flex Your Oracle Portal

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:11:19 +0000

Last week while many of us were gallivanting around Vegas at MAX, Oracle was holding their OpenWorld conference in San Francicso. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to be in two places at once, so I didn’t attend OpenWorld. But I did have the opportunity of building a Flex demo for one of the Oracle keynotes. I really just took a few of our sample applications and portalized them. You can see the end result on Oracle’s Portlet Testing Site. One cool thing to point out is that the portlets are actually remote portlets being served via Oracle’s JPDK. In case you want to play around with these portlets in your own portal, the provider url is: http://www.jamesward.org:8888/flexportlets/providers/flex_portlets

FLASH & FLEX: FREE FOR ALL (even Linux)!

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 01:13:01 +0000

As of yesterday, for the first time EVER, nearly everyone in the world has access to a FREE, ubiquitous application runtime, and a FREE application development toolkit for that runtime! Of course I’m referring to Flash Player 9 and the free Flex 2 SDK. To show people the power of these two technologies I’ve recorded a screen cam of me building a YouTube video player on Linux. Check it out!

TreeGrid Updated to Flex 2

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:02:41 +0000

UPDATE: I recommend using the AdvancedDataGrid control in Flex 3 and Flex 4.

Huge thanks to Latha for updating my old Flex 1.5 TreeGrid code to Flex 2:

http://codercentral.blogspot.com/2006/10/using-treegrid-in-flex-20.html

Check out a demo of Latha’s work:

Looks like I’m off the hook! :) Thanks Latha!

Flex 2 Apps on Linux!!!

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 03:40:16 +0000

One of the benefits of working for Adobe is that I get to test new products while they are still in the pre-release state. One night a few weeks ago I was able to install a pre-alpha build of Flash Player 9 on Linux. I couldn’t contain my excitement when I pulled up my first Flex 2 app on my Gentoo laptop. Smiling from ear to ear I ran over to Emmy Huang (who, as usual, was still working at 7pm), and I thanked her. And the next day I also had the chance to thank Mike Melanson, Tinic Uro who are also investing a lot of time making Flash Player 9 on Linux a reality. Many others at Adobe are also working hard to get the public beta out the door. Most Flex 2 apps I have tested are working, but there are still frequent browser crashes and other bugs that the team needs to fit before we can send a beta out the door. But we are close and I can’t wait to watch the very eager Linux community get their hands on Flash Player 9.

Flex Paint – Flex Display Object to PNG

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:55:46 +0000

UPDATE - I’ve created a new version of Flex Paint which doesn’t require the server roundtrip.

Flex allows you to easily create beautiful UIs. But what if you want to take a piece of the UI and save it as an image? Well, using Tinic’s AS3 PNG Encoder, Remote Object, and Flash’s BitmapData and ByteArray API it’s very easy. To show how this is done, I created a simple application called Flex Paint.

Debug Flex & Java Together in Flex Builder 2

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:40:33 +0000

I recently conducted an eSeminar on building enterprise applications with Flex Builder and Flex Data Services. You can view the recording of that presentation at: http://seminars.breezecentral.com/p24622178/

In my session I promised that I would formally document the process for debugging Flex & Java together in Flex Builder. So finally, here is that documentation.

Bye, Bye plog

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:37:58 +0000

I finally had time to finish my upgrade to WordPress. So hopefully I will be doing more blogging now. In case anyone else needs to migrate from plog to WordPress, you can download the really hacky php script I used. Oh if you received a comment approved email from me for a comment you posted long ago, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize WordPress was going to do that.

-James

WeBudget RIA 1.0 Beta 1 (Flex 1.5, Cairngorm 0.99, EJB 3)

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:29:21 +0000

I just finished the first beta release of WeBudget based on Flex 1.5, Cairngorm 0.99, and EJB 3. My wife and I use WeBudget to manage our personal budget. This version was an attempt to learn Cairngorm and EJB 3. Cairngorm really helped to organize the Flex code like a typical J2EE project which makes the code easier to debug and maintain. EJB 3 makes writing backend Java code brainless. The combination of Flex, Cairngorm, and EJB 3 is a very compelling platform for RIAs. The code is much simpler and more maintainable than the Struts applications I have built in the past. I hope that those learning Flex will find this code helpful. And

Flex WYSIWYG

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 14:15:56 +0000

Last night I created a simple WYSIWYG tool based on Flex, inspired in part by the Zamples idea of Live Code Examples. The goal is to do on-the-fly conversion of simple markup to Flash objects. This code is particularly useful for environments where content management is seperate from the web application. This is pretty basic and there may be better ways to do this, but I hadn’t seen this done before so I took a stab at it. Feel free to suggest improvements!

Using Greasemonkey To Fix Other’s Bugs

Thu, 26 May 2005 10:37:20 +0000

Ever since I got into Macromedia Flex I have not been able to view .mxml applications in any Mozilla based browser on Linux. Mozilla for some reason cuts off the Flash at around 240 pixels in width. I have searched the web and Mozilla’s Bugzilla trying to find others who have also experienced this problem. I haven’t found much. A few Mozilla bugs seem to indicate others had this same problem. But not enough for anyone at Mozilla or even Macromedia to care. There has only been 1 post about this issue on the flexcoders Yahoo list. So not really a big deal, except to those of us on Linux!

The RIA Race Is On

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 21:09:00 +0000

For the past six months I have been building one of the first ever Rich Internet Application (RIA) portals. The project has been incredibly fun and wrought with many challenges. Since the inception of our crazy idea to build a RIA portal I have learned a great deal about where the web is going. My RIA adventure started when I first encountered Macromedia ‘s Flex Explorer. I saw the very elegant components, and I was awed. Then I saw examples of the code I would soon be writing, and I was hooked. I couldn’t believe that a terrible UI developer like me could so easily create a beautiful RIA. I dove right in and quickly built a prototype of our soon-to-be portal complete with DataGrids and RemoteObjects, which were written in Java and exposed via AMF to the Flash-based front end. After a short time developing in Flex I realized I could never again enjoy building a Struts / JSP / HTML web application. They are too cumbersome and tedious for me after seeing how easy it is to build web applications in Flex.

TreeGrid Version 2

Sat, 05 Mar 2005 10:55:59 +0000

The second version of the TreeGrid component is done. It is working much better thanks to comments from Matt and Jose. I was able to resolve all of the issues I was aware of except the hard coded reference to “product”. I was even able to get recursion working. I think I may have to eventually extend DataGrid so that I can add column sorting. Here are the changes I would still like to make to it:

Flex TreeGrid

Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:23:35 +0000

For a while I have been wanting to create a TreeGrid component for Flex. The

basic idea is to allow a user to navigate a Tree like object within a

DataGrid. Well, I just finished a very hacky version 1:

Here are some problems with the current implementation:

I get strange flicker when mousing over the cells. Don’t know why.
If I resize the right column to cover part of the Title, the title doesn’t get clipped. Don’t know why.
The code looks only for children named “product”. I don’t know of a way to make this generic / configurable.
Only supports 3 levels because I can’t figure out how to do recursion in the disclosurePress function. When I tried to call another function to do recursion the recursive method never got called. Don’t know why.

Other than all that, it works decently. :) Any ActionScript experts out there, please help me out. :)

Building Mozilla Firefox 0.9 rc1 From Source on Gentoo

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 22:39:36 +0000

Yesterday Mozilla released Firefox 0.9 rc1 and I just couldn’t wait any longer for the ebuild, so I figured out how to get it built from the cvs source. The instructions are posted on the Gentoo Forums. Not a big deal, but I thought this was blog worthy since it was fun and exciting. I guess that makes me a nerd. :)

Enterprise PHP?

Thu, 29 Apr 2004 08:47:50 +0000

PHP is no doubt a great web programming platform. It is simple and fairly robust. About 90% of the time I want to find an open source web app for something, there are at least 5 written in php. It seems to have become the de-facto standard for simple web apps.

Currently I spend most of my time writing php because the contract I am currently on started with php as their web platform. I have written some pretty cool apps in php. With my most recent app I built a simple persistence framework in php. My background is Java and there are many great frameworks in Java for doing just about everything; from persistence to ui layout. Java definitely seems to have more frameworks that actual apps. That’s interesting and a topic for another day.

The JCP And Java Standards

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 23:21:14 +0000

My friend Mike came across an interesting wiki on Struts/JSF by Craig McClanahan himself… Struts - More About JSF

It’s an interesting wiki post… One comment I found interesting is: Every technology goes through a lifecycle of innovation, followed by popularization, followed (often, but quite often in the Java world) by standardization, followed by commoditization.

As always, there are two sides. And since I am the rebelous one, I’ll post the other: Howard Lewis Ship’s View on JSF

About James Ward

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bio:
Professional software developer since 1997, with much of that time spent helping developers build software that doesn't suck. A Typed Pure Functional Programming zealot who often compromises on his ideals to just get stuff done. Currently a Developer Advocate for AWS and AAIF Technical Committee member.

Things I'm Really Proud Of:

Co-Authored Effect Oriented Programming with Bruce Eckel & Bill Frasure
Presented at numerous developer conferences around the world
Kotlin Foundation Treasurer since 2023
Recognized as a Testcontainers Community Champion in 2023
Recognized as a Java Champion in 2021
Led Salesforce's Open Source Program Office 2017-2018
Helped define The Reactive Manifesto in 2014
Created WebJars in 2012
Co-authored First Steps in Flex with Bruce Eckel in 2008
Created the first Java hosting service in 1997

@jamesward.com

Developer Marketing Protips

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been in Developer Marketing since 2005, so I have some thoughts (shared via tweets):

If your developer product strategy is based on surveys, I have some survey data you need to see: pic.twitter.com/F9481WR1eU
— James Ward (@JamesWard) August 9, 2021

Dev Marketing Protip: If watching your virtual developer event requires registration so you can "collect leads," you are doing it all wrong.
— James Ward (@JamesWard) June 8, 2021

The primary call-to-action for every developer marketing activity should be: get developers' hands onto your stuff.

James Ward's Recent Presentations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Beyond local tools: Deep dive into MCP (Video)

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) standardizes how AI applications connect to external data and tools. Moving beyond local experiments, this talk explores advanced MCP architectures: local vs. remote server deployments, hosting and scaling strategies for remote MCP servers, and MCP gateways for unifying access and proxying to existing systems.We'll also examine authorization patterns and features such as resources, prompts, sampling, and elicitation. Attendees will gain practical insights into implementations, architectural trade-offs, and infrastructure considerations for building MCP-enabled AI systems.