Flex – Rules of Thumb

When you’re building JEE Applications, you always need to apply to a given set of rules, best practices.

When you need to take a decision in which technology to use to build your new application with, you need to be able to deliver each rule of tumb with this technology.

Rules of thumb that need to tackled:
– Isolation
– Simplicity of UI and Model
– Clear separation of concerns
– Responsive & intuitive User Interface

Delivering Rules of Thumb using FDMS

The rules of thumb mentioned for Adobe Flex Integration, can be delivered using Flex Data Management Services.

1. Isolation :

Isolate handling of state, presentation, action and communication

State:

• Assembler Class holds all necessary information regarding state-handling
• Pull-mechanism of Data Services assures all clients have up-to-date information

Presentation:

• Java DTO (Data Transfer Objects) are automatically mapped to Action Script DTO’s

Action:

• Actions are immediately called on the Assembler Class that holds all needed business logic and CRUD-methods

Communication:

• Communication between client and server are handled on server-side using the Assembler Class

2. Simplicity of UI and Data Model:

Keep UI and data model code as simple as possible

• The User Interface only defines the lay-out of the different objects and data management is performed by the Data Services
• Data Model is provided using Web Service Stubs created on the deployed Bpel Processes and Data Transfer Objects

We still need to manually create an Action Script DTO object for each POJO we’re using in our Web Services.

3. Clear separation of concerns:

Decouple and make programming tasks parallel so they can be carried out by different people

• Assembler Class will be defined for each designated web service stub
• Data Transfer Objects will be defined in ActionScript for each used object-definition in the Assembler-class

4. Responsive & intuitive User Interface:

Provide a very responsive user experience with clear feedback and zero latency

• Provided using Data Services Management using push-mechanism
• Use managed DTO-components so each event is known to the Data Services
• Use validation-framework for client-side validation
• Use conflict resolution API for exception handling