IBM developerWorks recently published a new article that I wrote, titled Use the best open source client-side framework for cloud computing. The article ultimately takes Flex and OpenLaszlo and puts them head-to-head against each other.

Why Flex and OpenLaszlo?

Flex is clearly the market dominator for RIA applications, and though OpenLaszlo may have a lot of catching up to do, its arguably the next best thing. In the article I do my best to make a fair and unbiased comparison, and someone even noted that I did not discuss the advantage of AMF that Flash has for data transfer. With that said, yes, it is slightly weighted to facilitate open-mindedness toward RIA and the fact that there is a legitimate competitor to Flex.

Why not Silverlight or JavaFX?

Silverlight is licensed under the tight, grubby fingers of Microsoft, who isn’t much of an advocate for open source. Not to mention the fact that although it is good with video, that’s about it… even most MS developers are not even bothering with Silverlight when it comes to RIA. Sun on the other hand, is undoubtedly an advocate of open source, but JavaFX is so immature that Sun isn’t even ready to release it as an open source product.

Can OpenLaszlo reasonably be compared to Flex?

Laszlo Systems doesn’t have the marketing dollars and community following that Adobe does, nor does it have 25 years of industry credibility behind it, so it is no surprise that there isn’t a very large community of RIA developers supporting LZX. However, one could logically assert that OpenLaszlo is “the little engine that could” to RIA, and there is only one reason I would give it such credit. The goal of LZX – the declarative syntax that is used with OpenLaszlo – is to have the capability of compiling to any format for the web. Being that it is unlikely Microsoft will release the Silverlight compiler to the open source community, that leaves us with DHTML and SWF. Of course, DHTML isn’t exactly “compiled”. Instead, OpenLaszlo generates the necessary DHTML from your LZX code for publishing to the web. The fact that it can do that AND compile to the native SWF format to run from the Flash Virtual Machine is impressive in and of itself and deserves some street cred at the least.

If you’re interested in learning more about OpenLaszlo, including how to code it, it’s history, and how it stands up against Flex, CLICK HERE to be taken to the article on the IBM developerWorks site.

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Introduction

The purpose of this entry is not to define Agile development methods (there’s more than enough of that out there already), but rather to identify the characteristics of a company that is properly implementing and seeing positive results from Agile Project Management.

When an SaaS project is initiated, those who are responsible for building the invention are among the most important people to the business during that time. They must be treated with the kind of dignity and respect that demonstrate the impact they have on the success of an SaaS initiative.

Traditional Project Management

Analyzing the problem-solving characteristics of a company’s Executive Officers will tell you a lot. More specifically, what you are looking for is the level by which they do or do not value and honor traditional means of solving problems.

The second major characteristic to look for is the existence of a process or strategy that religiously used as an approach for resolving every problem that comes up. Chances are, with this kind of leadership at the very top, you will usually find what – at first glance – appears to be an orderly, hierarchical structure to the way that tasks are delegated. You will usually also notice a disconnect between the lower-level management such as having a clear understanding for design requirements, for example. In other words, a developer might get a different answer depending on which manager they pose the question to.

It is also common to find a lot of finger-pointing and missed deadlines in this type of environment. This is an example of the type of atmosphere that does not work for successful SaaS. In fact, this kind of atmosphere can be such a detriment to productivity that these projects are usually shelved before they ever even make it to the “75% complete” mark. Then new management is brought on, yet the core problem still exists – the Executive Leadership is accidentally injecting a structured and “top-down” type of software development methodology that was used mostly in the 80’s and early 90’s, known as “Waterfall”.

Outside consultants usually look far too low in the organizational chart – at the Project Managers and Lead Architects – when they are brought in by the Executives or Board of Directors to solve HR problems. Most consultants never even think to start by questioning the very people that hired them to fix the problem.

Agile Management

In contrast, Executive Leaders who handle every problem with a different approach inherit the side-effect of facilitating an environment that is conducive to change. When presented with what may seem to be a severely threatening problem, these leaders will often facilitate a creative “brainstorming” session between their best problem solvers (who are usually specially selected advisors, not always a Board of Directors), and the atmosphere consistently holds a positive aura no matter how serious or stressing the problem may be.

The result is an environment where Project Managers and Lead Architects are not afraid to make important decisions about changing things that are not working. Additionally, these “managers” are often leaders in the sense that they do not require a title. In fact, they usually prefer to have the same title as everyone else. Yet, the team always knows who to go to for support. This breaks down the “Waterfall” methodology that has consistently failed. Instead, a naturally “Agile” type of methodology is inherited, which has proven to be far more effective for successful SaaS.

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The first of a series of articles I recently wrote on the Data-centric features of Flash Builder 4 was recently published on the Zend Developer Zone. Obviously this article focuses on the built-in automated data-centric development features for PHP and the Zend framework in Flash Builder 4 beta. Check it out.

Data-centric Adobe Flash Builder development with the Zend Framework

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In response to a number of recent requests that I’ve gotten for an online portfolio, I have posted a “rough draft” preliminary version that uses Papervision3D for a “cover flow” type of effect that is reminiscent of what is probably the most famous addition to Apple’s OSX 10.5 Leopard operating system. Anyway, I plan to add a 5th section for Audio/Video production, but since I want to play the audio and videos directly from the app, I haven’t gotten that far yet. Nonetheless, although this isn’t necessary unique and original (3D carousels and cover flow components and apps have been swimming around the AS3 underground for a little while now), I think this is a pretty neat way to present an online portfolio if you ask me. It sure beats a typical 2D slideshow! 

Since I expect this will be changing a lot over the coming months, I am definitely open to feedback. Click HERE to take a look at it and let me know what you think by leaving comments here.

Here’s a screenshot (click for full size):

Papervision3D cover flow portfolio screenshot

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I came across one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while, the “Tour de Flex Component Explorer”. This is an AIR application that also has a corresponding web-based version. This is something that both newbies and gurus alike will find most interesting. You can install the application by clicking the install badge below:

The coolest thing about this application is that Flexers are invited to submit their work to be included in the application. What an ingenious way for Flexers to collaborate on ideas! It gets better though; it seems that Adobe has created a plugin for Eclipse as well that allows you to browse the Tour de Flex components right from the Eclipse IDE.

Here are some additional Tour de Flex links:

The web-based version of the application can be viewed HERE

Additional info on the application can be found HERE

The sample submission to have your work included can be found HERE

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Amazon has released the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse in tandem with a how-to tutorial that I finished last week. I’ve spent a lot of time recently learning about the services offered under the Amazon Web Services umbrella, and I’m pleased to say that Amazon has truly taken a lot of initiative in the way of cloud computing in the last few years. There’s a bit of a learning curve involved, but once you figure out the architecture of their Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and SimpleDB, the benefits will be very clear, particularly for network administrators responsible for deploying scalable enterprise clusters of systems.

The lastest and greatest innovation from AWS is the Toolkit for Eclipse, which allows you to deploy and manage Tomcat EC2 server clusers (i.e. “instances”) and debug Java applications on the remote server – all right from the Eclipse IDE!

Find out more about this new technology and how to install it (its FREE!) in my new article just recently published in the “Featured Tutorials” section of the AWS web site.

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I came across this article on O’Reilly’s InsideRIA site by Moxie Zheng and was surprised to find some similarities between the architecture the author describes and the architecture that I am seeking to create. The good stuff begins under the subtitle about halfway down, labeled “The Architecture”, where Moxie Zheng discusses his use of an Event Bus the same way as I have implemented it into my own architecture.

One thing I wanted to point out, and my reason for mentioning it here, is that below that he describes what he refers to as “The Widget Programming Model”, something I have not come across before. When it comes to enterprise Flex apps, we’re usually dealing with multiple user levels. In other words, the interface must look different based on the conditions under which the user is accessing the application. These conditions are often set by an external database server that handles user management, in which user types and their respective permissions may be set in a specific table. Then each user is assigned a user type, or in some cases, multiple user types. Therefore, the client side AIR or Flex application must construct itself “on the fly” so to speak, based on the group of configuration settings that it is handed from the server side. I like this widget-based programming model because it takes custom component development to an even more loosely coupled level, making it virtually impossible for the developer to creat interdependencies within an application due to the nature under which that particular widget must be programmed. It’s loose-coupling at it’s finest.

These “widgets” are compiled as separate swf “mini-applications” if you will, encapsulating and isolating code that handles a specific way of viewing data on the server. As I wrap my brain around the possibilities with this design pattern, I can’t help but think that for applications that are powered by specialized services, a “widget registry” could in fact be formed on the network (talking about AIR applications only now). Therefore, if a user was installing the application based on a certain set of credentials, a call to the network registry would return a set of “widgets” that should be installed along with the main application, thus defining how that particular user views the application interface. This concept could easily apply to the branding of an application based on the web site it was downloaded from, as a simple example.

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