I think frameworks are always a debatable topic, no matter which programming language you talk about. I personally am not even sure whether using a framework in every project you do, is such a good idea or not. But anyways, thats a separate topic. I just think that you should atleast know about the capabilities and usefulness of frameworks so if you have to use them, you should be able to.
As I have not used any Flex frameworks till now in any of my Flex projects , I wanted to give it a try. And I started looking which one is the best for a small project I was gonna start. I have heard about Cairngorm and PureMVC in the past, but I have also heard that they have a slightly steep learning curve involved. It might make sense when there is a large team working on a single project so to make sure everyone follows a common approach, but in my case, since the entire development team size is limited to just one (myself) , I wanted something simpler. Something I dont spend much time learning.
Thats when I found out this excellent framework comparison article by Jeremy Wischusen. The article clearly discusses the strength’s and weaknesses of the available Flex frameworks and after reading this article, making a choice was quite easy for me. I am really glad I read this article sooner than later.
Now, only if there was such an article somewhere for the 30 or so ColdFusion frameworks as well !!!
There are articles on this for ColdFusion. I have an older one at http://www.remotesynthesis.com/post.cfm/Mach-II-or-ColdSpring-Understanding-the-Differences-Between-ColdFusion-Frameworks but more recently, Mark Mandel published one on Devnet http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/frameworks_intro.html
There’s also an excellent series about the main Flex frameworks on InsideRIA.com by Tony Hillerson.
Based on his series, I went the Mate route for my small projects and love it! I still use PureMVC for large projects but that’s more a result of a client insisting on PureMVC, which I don’t like nearly as much as Mate.
The intro article in his 6 part series:
http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/frameworkquest-2008-introducti.html
@Brian, Thanks for the links. Mark Mandel’s article is actually very good. I totally missed it somehow. And yours is a good read as well. I didnt know these existed.
@Craig, thanks for the link. I also decided to use Mate for my personal project. How was your experience with Mate?
There is also Swiz its new to me but I just watched a good presentation of it that was recorded last night http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/p98371937
Swiz code: http://code.google.com/p/swizframework/
Hi Paul, Thanks for the link to the recording. I will have a look at it tonight.
nice article, its really good
I wrote a dependency injection framework for Flex, Air, and ActionScript 3. It’s similar to Swiz, but a bit easier to learn and use (IMO).
I call it “Mainline.” I’ll be posting some examples and advanced usage tips over the next few days.
Mainline Framework
@Tyler, that sounds great. Looking forward to your examples and usage tips ? Is it similar to ColdSpring ?
This is great article. Currently i am using PureMVC Framework for development.