Professional Cairngorm (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

Jeremy Wischusen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470497262 | ISBN-13: 978-0470497265 | Publication Date: November 23, 2009 | Edition: 1

Take advantage of Cairngorm, one of the leading Flex frameworks for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA)

Cairngorm is a framework that encourages best practices for RIA development. It is the most popular and widely deployed Flex framework, yet very few books provide the depth and detail necessary to thoroughly understand and utilize it. This helpful resource fills that void by going beyond the basics of Cairngorm and showing you the details behind its design.

Using a full-scale project throughout the book, the author shows you Cairngorm in a real-world situation. You'll examine the various parts of the framework and what those parts are designed to accomplish, plus you'll learn how to implement each of the individual parts to create a complete project.

• Offers hard-to-find coverage of Cairngorm, the popular framework used for RIA development
• Features a real-world case throughout the book to walk you through the process of using Cairngorm in a large-scale project
• Explains the details behind Cairngorm and how you can best take advantage of this framework

With this resource, you'll get step-by-step guidance on how to best take advantage of all that Cairngorm has to offer.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Professional Cairngorm

Jeremy Wischusen

Create components and classes with the Cairngorm framework

Although Cairngorm is the oldest and most widely used Flex framework, very little literature exists that clearly explains how to implement this framework. This book fills that void by showing you how Cairngorm facilitates team development, encourages best practices for building Flex-based RIAs, and works well with medium- to large-scale projects in which code needs to be separated and organized.

• Begins with an introduction to Cairngorm, focusing on the underlying principles, source code, and uses of Cairngorm

• Examines the major components of Cairngorm including the ModelLocator, ServiceLocator, FrontController, Events, Commands, Delegates, and Value Objects

• Presents a sample project that walks you through the various aspects of its organization and its handling of application logic

• Explains how to make the most of events, commands, delegates, and value objects

• Explores alternative methods for using events, commands, and delegates

• Shares techniques for linking Cairngorm to a project

• Offers suggestions for taking advantage of plug-ins and extensions

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About the Author

Jeremy Wischusen has worked for such clients as Dockers, Quicksilver, Major League Baseball, Sports Authority, CBS, and Liz Claiborne. He works with front- and backend systems, designing many projects from start to finish using such technologies as Ajax, jQuery, CSS, XHTML, PHP, Flash, and Flex.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (November 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470497262
• ISBN-13: 978-0470497265
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,343,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeremy Wischusen has over 13 years experience designing websites and applications such clients as Purple Communications, myYearbook.com, HBO and others building both front end and backend systems with Flash, Flex, JQuery, PHP, MySQL, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL.

In the past, he has taught web design for clients such as Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and The Vanguard Group, Bucks County Community College and the University of the Arts.

Jeremy has also published several articles in a variety of areas as well as a book on the Cairngorm Flex Micro Architecture.

IBM Developer Works
Getting started with Eclipse code templates
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/os-dw-os-eclipse-code-templates.html?S_TACT=105AGX44&S_CMP=HP

Adobe Developer Connection
Choosing a Flex framework
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_framework.html

Linux Magazine
The Adobe AIR File API
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7365/1.html

Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Professional Cairngorm
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470497262.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, February 4, 2010

By 

K. Addaquay (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Professional Cairngorm (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

this is actually a really good book if you are a beginner and want to learn cairngorm. i am on chapter 20 of the book. the only thing i wasnt too crazy about was the samples dont use any live services but instead, simulate the service. the author does explain well how a live service would respond call given the case....but it would have been nice to have some kind of local xml data just to demonstrate it in the book. if u want to learn cairngorm....this is a good book. it doesnt have any advanced concepts though...so its good if you are beginning. i would recommend it to anyone looking to learn this framework

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Professional ?!?!, January 9, 2010

By 

Nermin Hanjalic - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Professional Cairngorm (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

I have to say that i was rarely so disappointed with a book like with this one. It might be my high expectations because there was no prior "pro"-stuff on Cairngorm, but let me give you a short version right off: The only professional"-thing on this book is the title!!

Except from last twenty pages, there is nothing what u can't see in David Tuckers videos. And beside that 95% of the stuff described u can also find on 100 pages of the Flex Pro(Wrox) book, just a little bit concisely(not purely) described and with the Flex Pro u get a whole a lot of stuff extra - to be exact + 1300 pages.
First 130 pages a describing the mvc, model, view, controler ... bla bla
Chapter 16 describes login-process (ha ha "Chapter 16" +"login"= "professional book" - yeah)
And the rest is describing some insane-simple commenting system, WITHOUT EVEN SHOWING THE FULL CRUD, yes there is even no example how to update a record(yeah, pro's don't update).
At least tips how to handle that VO's through reusable components by inserting in contrast to updating, how to work with cairngorm and modules, is it better to cache the changes on client or should one always call getWHATEVER after deleteWHATEVER, how to lazyload `em, at least with some example of how to map/handle many2many db-records with model locator, some examples of presentational model patterns or ... or what ever.
Then Chapter 21-22 are just correction all that what was terribly done by now.
Chapter 23 shows the for two years deprecated ViewHelper-stuff. (And this is, with the chapter 28 may be the best Part of the book)
Chapter 27 explains on 21 page, full of huge screen-snapshots, Cairngorm Plugin. In contrary chapter 28 explains the universal mind extensions on only 7 pages :) cheers

To be honest, if I had rated it on that day when I got it, I would gave it 0 points but ...

Time for some good News :)

The book is actually not bad written and that is the only reason im giving two stars. If they called it "Beginning Cairngorm" I would give it four Stars , but "Professional Cairngorm" comon Mr. Wischusen!

Closing Tipp - if u never ever heard a thing about Cairngorm buy this professional book, other ways save our money.

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't examine real world scenarios, March 31, 2010

By 

Philip A. Damra "djheru" (Grand Rapids, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Professional Cairngorm (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

This book is divided into two main sections. The first, a walkthrough of the main components of the framework, is very useful for a beginner. It examines the base classes of the framework and does a good job of explaining how the pieces fit together.

When it comes to implementing the framework in a practical way, however, the author makes a terrible decision IMHO. Instead of dealing with the normal use case where the Flex application will be connecting to a remote service to send/retrieve data, he decided to use the example of an AIR application that only uses the SQLite (local) database. The author discusses his reasoning for this decision and indicates that it would add an unneeded layer of complexity to deal with the various server side technologies (php vs Java vs CF vs .net). IMO, it would've been a much better idea to use the Flex HTTPService class and then just generate static XML files that the server would return to the Flex app. That way, we would be able to learn more about the functionality of the ServiceLocator and the delegates.

To make matters worse, the AIR app that the book walks you through building is a BLOG!!! Get it? This book teaches you the supremely useful ability to build a blog that resides only on your local machine, so you can create blog posts that nobody else can read. He could've at least picked an application that would make sense as an AIR app.