Flex & Neat Apps 09 Jun 2008 08:24 am
Mate: A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks
There are many Flex frameworks, but very few are designed with Flex developers in mind.
PureMVC, for example, has a very rigid design that only a J2EE developer would feel comfortable with. Another well known Flex framework, Cairngorm, is heavily rooted in the hardcore AS3 development background. The bottom line is, none of the frameworks is doing enough to leverage the declarative nature of MXML.
It makes sense because majority of the Flex developer base came from either J2EE camp or the Flash/AS3 camp. I myself came from a J2EE developer background. As my Flex skills progress, I deveped an appreciation for the beauty of MXML. I became dissatisfied with the verbose AS3 based frameworks.
For a very long time, I would build Flex applications that adhere to design patterns, but not using any frameworks. That’s the only way I could write clean code while still fully leverage MXML.
But then I found Mate. It’s a very forgiving MVC framework that makes good use of MXML. The framework uses an event driven model, nothing ground breaking. But I really like it because it gets Flex and MXML. It’s worth mentioning that the framework comes with really excellent documentations. If you are a framework non-believer, be sure to check it out.
Need to bring your Flex project up to speed? Zee Yang is a freelance Flex developer with deep understanding of architecture and user experience. You can reach him at zee.yang@gmail.com.
on 09 Jun 2008 at 1:12 pm 1.Ivan Alvarez Frias said …
What advantages do you believe Mate have in order to use it to Enterprise Flex Applications?
on 09 Jun 2008 at 1:48 pm 2.Zee said …
There’s really no perfect framework for enterprise RIAs. It all depends on your team.
If your Flex devs just came from a J2EE background, chances are, they will be productive with PureMVC.
The advantage of Mate is that it plays well with MXML. Seasoned Flex developers, or CF developers, will find it easier and faster to work with.
on 11 Jun 2008 at 11:38 am 3.moxie said …
Hey Zee, I like your takes on Mate. Many frameworks are becomes to heavy at the programming side, in a way, makes an application more complicate and hard to maintain.
BTW, to be a freelance, you’d better put on a better picture here. I’d be hesitate to hire you by looking at the photo:-)
on 15 Jun 2008 at 5:34 am 4.112 » Blog Archive » Mate: A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks said …
[...] Mate: A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks There are many Flex frameworks, but very few are designed with Flex developers in mind. [...]
on 14 Aug 2008 at 3:59 pm 5.Mate Flex Framework « Fernando Correia’s Weblog said …
[...] Mate: A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks [...]
on 18 Aug 2008 at 1:47 pm 6.john said …
PureMVC is a robust framework. It is weightier than cairngorm in its approach, but that extra weight provides useful patterns for approaching view-centric RIA development.
on 26 Nov 2008 at 2:14 pm 7.Vasile said …
I will try it… I like mxml too
on 11 Jan 2009 at 7:35 am 8.Shared Tutorials » Blog Archive » A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks said …
[...] A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks [...]
on 16 Mar 2010 at 12:31 am 9.Mate Flex Framework — A tag-based event-driven Flex framework | Flex Certification said …
[...] Mate: A Flex Framework for People who Hate Frameworks [...]