Benefits of using Flex
Enhanced user experience Flex lets you build applications that provide an engaging user experience. An engaging user experience ensures that customers are drawn into your application, that they understand how to use it, and that they can more quickly complete a task or find the information they are seeking.
A complete environment Flex is a powerful application development solution for creating and delivering RIAs within the enterprise and across the web. It provides a modern, standards-based language and programming model that supports common design patterns and includes a highly productive IDE.
Common deployment environment Flex applications execute on Flash Player 9, which is platform independent, so customers do not need to install custom client software. Also, Flash Player runs consistently in all browsers and platforms, so you do not have to worry about inconsistent behavior in different client environments.
Enterprise-class features You can use Flex Data Services to transparently synchronize data and support real-time data push. Messaging capabilities enable more robust applications that continue to function after network connectivity is lost and allow multiple people in different locations to browse or chat in the same application. These features, plus the ability to integrate audio and video, open the door to new ways of interacting with customers, partners, and employees.
Eliminate page loads Applications running in Flash Player behave like desktop applications, instead of a series of linked pages. Flash Player manages the client interface as a single, uninterrupted flow and does not require a page load from the server when the client moves from one section of the application to another.
Standards-based architecture Flex, ActionScript, and MXML are designed to existing standards. MXML is XML compliant, implements styles based on the Cascading Style Sheets, level 1(CSS1) specification, and implements an event model based on a subset of the W3C DOM Level 3 Events specification. ActionScript is an ECMAScript-based language that provides support for object-oriented development. The Flex server executes on standard J2EE platforms or servlet containers.
Cross-browser compatibility Web applications should run the same on all browsers and platforms. By standardizing on Flash Player as the client environment, you are guaranteed a consistent user experience on all platforms and browsers. For more information, see Deploying Flex applications on Flash Player.
