- 1). Visit the Adobe Flash Builder website and download the 30-day free trial, or purchase the full version of Flash Builder. Follow the instructions provided by the download link to install the software.
- 2). Research rich Internet applications (RIAs). Before you begin developing in Flex, it is important to understand the purpose and place of RIAs. A good starting place is "Tour de Flex," which is a compilation of over 100 examples of Flex applications that Adobe put together and continues to expand. There is also an ever expanding display of Flex examples on the Flex developer site.
- 3). Bookmark the Flex language reference. The language reference is the one consistent reference in software development. Adobe provides one of the best language references on the Internet, which includes examples within each component class.
- 4). Familiarize yourself with the Flash Builder user interface. Walk through the menu system and get a sense for where items are located. This will make working through tutorials much easier and faster, by allowing you to focus on learning the language concepts rather than the interface itself.
- 5). Work through all of the beginner's tutorials you can find so that you can begin to understand the syntax of the language and the nuances of writing Adobe Flex applications. Again, a good place to start is Adobe's "Tour de Flex" page. After you work through the tour, there are over 25 beginner's tutorials on "Flex Quick Starts." By seeing how experienced developers write simple applications, you can see what the best practices are in Adobe Flex.
- 6). Start writing simple Flex applications that have use to you. Writing applications that you use keeps you motivated and makes you more productive.
- 7). Write more complex applications and learn the industry standard architectures for Flex. As your applications become bigger, design becomes more important. As of 2010, the recommended architecture is an open source solution called Cairngorm. Cairngorm is a micro-architecture that dictates where functionality is placed within an application structure. Cairngorm provides a library to make developing within the paradigm as easy as possible. A small group within Adobe run the Cairngorm project. A link to the project is in references.
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