1. Getting Started

This chapter gives you a better understanding of what Flex is, both as a technology and as a development environment (Flash Builder). This chapter also includes how to install and configure Flash Builder for developing components.

Flex

In the beginning, Flex was a J2EE application server that “lived” on the server and took flat, plain text files and produced compiled content (an SWF) from them when a visitor requested the relevant file. This was fine, but it had its limitations. It was expensive—really expensive. Plus, as a developer, it was a fairly niche skill to have. Unless you worked for an organization that was large enough to buy a copy of Flex, or had a client willing to do likewise, it was fairly unlikely that you ...

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