Christophe has provided sample Flex and MXML source worth a peek. While crafting a browser-based RSS reader is not exactly a likely use case, it is more interesting than yet another Hello World intro, and it illustrates just how much can be accomplished in Flash with a few lines of MXML.

Intelligent folks have offered really good questions about just what the heck we're doing with Flex and how it fits into Service Oriented Architectures, Struts, J2EE, and ASP.NET web apps. Thus: Pointers to a few responses of general note plus a look at the MXML syntax.

To do rich apps well, we need the right app model and we need a cross-platform ubiquitous client. I've written about the former, a declarative model for building service-oriented rich apps, called Flex. Now I'll mention a new product aimed at the latter: An evolution of the ubiquitous Flash VM that transcends the browser and runs in the desktop.

Amid the talk about Macromedia Flex, several questions seem to be recurring. I'll offer quick and unofficial thoughts on five of them: how it relates to DHTML, XUL, SVG, JSF, and our existing Flash MX tool.

We've been working on an XML syntax for generating compositions of rich UI components from web apps, rendering them in the ubiquitous Flash VM, and binding them to remote data and services. Previously code-named Royale, it enters beta with the official product name "Macromedia Flex."

Using an XML syntax to declare and generate a rich UI for service-oriented and data-driven applications is getting a lot of traction. While much of the talk is about the application model, as it should be, it's also true that approaches like XAML, Royale, and XUL all make assumptions about the ubiquity of the client containers which they target.

The buzz and crackle of mating unrelated new excitements: Experiences with Amazon web services, Project Atom, and a J2ME camera phone application that acts as a bar code scanner to transform all physical goods into mere floor demos.

The engineer – with that harried, vaguely irritated yet highly competent demeanor we all wear so well – ducks from the cameras like a common CEO or accountant as he enters the courthouse to defend his team’s code from critical errors and a security hole that festered in the absence of proper state-required methodology.

Exploring how first component-oriented and now service-oriented technologies reached ubiquitous mainstream success... while we're busy designing more interesting but possibly less broadly-embraceable manifestations of the same.

Observations on the summertime mating practices of systems engineers, well-versed in moving data into and out of everything non-human, with interface designers, who it turns out are obsessed with more than just collecting new fonts for annoying ad banners.

Impressions from my experience attending The Server Side Symposium, where I spoke on Rich Internet Applications

Confused by the chaotic maelstrom of XML specifications coursing through all those standards organizations? Take a look at this, and enlightenment will follow...

If you’d like to earn a living doing what you love most, and if that happens to be writing software, then lower your eyes, purse your lips penitently, and force yourself instead to look for dollars in tangents: write books about it, consult on it, sell hardware to run it, teach it – anything but aspire to live from crafting software itself.

Despite the Java noisy noise about attracting Visual Basic-type developers, I retain the impression that many of us Java folks don’t get it. Either we can’t define this audience or we secretly don’t believe in its value. But there is value here, value loftier than merely growing product revenue and stealing corporate developers away from .NET.