Professional BlazeDS: Creating Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

Shashank Tiwari (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470464895 | ISBN-13: 978-0470464892 | Publication Date: October 12, 2009 | Edition: 1

A hands-on guide to creating Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using BlazeDS

BlazeDS enables you to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real time to Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR applications in order to garner more responsive Rich Internet Application (RIA) experiences. It is a scalable option for Flex and Java integration and allows you to create excellent RIAs with both Flex and Java.

This informative resource provides you with detailed examples and walkthroughs that explain the best practices for creating RIAs using BlazeDS. You'll begin with the essentials of BlazeDS and then more on to more advanced topics. Along the way, you'll learn the real-world concerns that surround enterprise-based Java and Flex applications.

• BlazeDS enables you to connect to back-end distributed data in order to garner more responsive Rich Internet Application (RIA) experiences
• Begins with an introduction to BlazeDS, and explains the necessary features for integrating new and existing Java data sources and applications with Flex-based RIAs
• Provides hands-on examples and addresses real-world concerns surrounding enterprise-based Java and Flex applications
• Serves as a comprehensive walk through for creating RIAs using BlazeDS

If you're looking to create rich, productive, and engaging applications, then this book is for you.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Use BlazeDS to create exceptional rich applications with Flex and Java

BlazeDS is a popular, open source web application that can successfully be deployed into a Java application server, making it an ideal option for Flex and Java integration. With this comprehensive resource, you'll walk through the process of creating Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using BlazeDS. After a look at BlazeDS basics, the book then moves on to explain how to configure, customize, and extend BlazeDS in order to integrate with new and existing Java data sources and applications with Flex-based RIA.

• Explains how to install BlazeDS from source as well as its compiled distributions

• Demonstrates ways to make user interfaces engaging and effective

• Introduces techniques for intercepting for control and management

• Features tips for configuring a remoting service and a destination

• Reviews remoting communication flow and remoting related classes, components, and modules

• Includes coverage of testing and debugging Flex and BlazeDS applications

• Shows how to extend BlazeDS with custom adapters and factories to connect to enterprise Java resources.

• Discusses methods for leveraging JPA and Hibernate with Flex

• Delves into the topic of communicating real-time via messages

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

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About the Author

Shashank Tiwari is a technology entrepreneur, speaker, author, and innovator. He is currently a managing partner & CTO at Treasury of Ideas (http://www.treasuryofideas.com), a technology-driven innovation and value optimization company.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (October 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470464895
• ISBN-13: 978-0470464892
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,075,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

An experienced software developer, technology entrepreneur and enterprise architect with interests in the areas of high performance applications, analytics, web applications and mobile platforms. Enjoys data visualization, statistical & machine learning, coffee and deserts. Trainer, mentor, consultant and advisor. Author of many technical articles and books. Speaker at many conferences worldwide and at user groups and meetups. Loves playing with diverse range of new and old technologies and attempts research in the domain of computational intelligence and smart applications. Contributor to open source initiatives.

Offers his expertise under the umbrella of Treasury of Ideas, a technology driven business innovation and value optimisation company he founded.

He lives with his wife and two sons in Palo Alto, California. More information about him can be accessed at his website -- www.shanky.org (also accessible via www.shashanktiwari.com).

Other links (that may be useful):
-- http://www.shanky.org
-- http://www.google.com/profiles/tshanky
-- http://www.amazon.com/Shashank-Tiwari/e/B002BOHNO4
-- http://about.me/shashank.tiwari
-- http://www.treasuryofideas.com (my company)

Shashank Tiwari's Specialties:
-- Developing NoSQL, MapReduce and Machine Learning based big data applications.
-- Developing quantitative financial computational solutions.
-- Architecting, designing and developing distributed software applications.
-- Creating next generation Rich Internet Applications.
-- Creating leading edge mobile and touch based applications.
-- Continuously learning and attempting to master varied set of technologies and programming languages (including Ruby, Python, C++, Scala and Java).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Consize overview of the product for a busy professional, November 19, 2009

By 

Yakov Fain (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Professional BlazeDS: Creating Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Coming to Flex from a Java world, I clearly see two groups of people working on enterprise RIA projects:
1. People who know Java and J2EE and are novices to Flex
2. People who know Flex with a little understanding of what's going on on the server side (i.e. J2EE)

I'm interviewing lots of enterprise developers for various Flex/Java roles, and it seems to be a trend that most people do not understand internals of BlazeDS/LCDS. While you can definitely find bits and pieces of information on the subject by googling specific topics and going through the product documentation, this 300-page book is something that gives you the entire picture of Flex-BlazeDS-J2EE data flow. How many people know what's long polling and what why it's better than polling? How to configure channels and endpoints to use long polling with failover to polling? Can you push the data form the server to the client with BlazeDS? How can you modify and extend the communication layer of BlazeDS (front-end channels and server-side adapters)? What are the option of conneting BlazeDS with the ORM framework (Hibernate)?

This book gives you an overview of all these subjects with pretty simple to follow code samples. One of the reviewers wrote that he was falling to sleep while reading this book. Sure, it's a lot more interesting reading about developing flashy UI gadgets. Give me yet another Flex video player and a photo album application!

Unfortunately, there are boring areas in any Flex/Java enterprise application that can either turn your project either into a well performing stable RIA or put the server on its knees.

If you are looking for a fundamental manuscript on BlazeDS, this is not the book you need. But if you are a busy professional/tech lead/PM who needs to quickly get the big picture and understand what his/her options are, this book will definitely help you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, April 6, 2010

By 

Bykov Rodion - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Professional BlazeDS: Creating Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Very useful book for everyone working with Flex/AIR and remote data. If you ever wonder how Flash Remoting works from inside - this book is for you. BlazeDS is not only standalone Java server, but also comes bundled with Adobe Coldfusion 9 and Railo. Book will be helpful to Coldfusion/Railo developers to dig deeper into Flash Remoting and real-time messaging.

1.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunate purchase, April 10, 2011

By 

Tyler - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional BlazeDS: Creating Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Kindle Edition)

Reading this book was like reading a term paper that was written the night before it was due - it's filled with fluff, the grammar and flow gets worse the farther along you get, the chapters that sound like they'll be interesting are a waste of time. Save your money.