One might consider it the lesser known cousin of more high-profile frameworks like .NET and Java, but the Flash model  is as ubiquituous, if not more so, than the rest of the frameworks for building rich Internet applications. Almost every browser supports the Flash player plug-in, and while most of us would associate Flash with the exasperating pop-ups and juvenilia that festoon the Web, it is a viable platform for building serious applications.

Unfortunately, due to the wide usage of Flash for the aforementioned web advertisements, many people block Flash content through plugins like FlashBlock for the Firefox browser. There are also accessibility and privacy concerns, as well as the lack of a viable open licensing program, at least as perceived in some quarters. Internet Explorer users will also likely face issues with having to manually activate the Flash controls due to a patch implemented by Microsoft to address patent issues with embedded ActiveX controls. Adobe is doing well, though, with a market cap of over $16 billion, despite depressed stock prices, and, as CEO Bruce Chizen said recently in a New York Times interview, "This delivery of information across all platforms and media types is what is driving our business."

Adobe recently released Adobe Flex 2, an IDE built on the Eclipse framework for building Flash applications. It requires the new Flash 9 runtime, and is derived from the earlier Macromedia product, Flex, that Adobe gained rights to, along with Flash, when they acquired Macromedia in December, 2005. Flex provides the ability to build workflow-based applications, rather than merely animation-heavy thingumabobs. It actually compiles MXML and ActionScript on the fly into binary Flash applications.

MXML is an XML-based language, with the traditional Model-View-Controller approach, and the ability to handle events, data services, and web services. Containers are added that hold controls, which can be bound to data elements. It loads within the Flash run-time, and to belabor a much abused term, provides AJAX-style convenience with much less of the complexity.

There are numerous exasperating issues, dealing, as is usual on the Web, with cross-domain security. An Adobe Flex2 blog-reader app I wrote looks and works great, but currently only works with information from the local server. Anything more will require a rewrite that invokes a proxy on the app server, which is not encumbered by these pesky security restrictions. Adobe Labs explains the steps, and the possible use of a cross-domain xml file to authenticate the web service.

The adoption of this framework and programming model will take time, and will be based on community support and ease of integration with existing applications. The availability of the free SDK will help in this, but Adobe could do worse than give away their Eclipse-based IDE as well in return for increased developer involvement and application development.

A recent SYS-CON seminar, "Real-World Flex", was well-attended, and powerful demonstrations of Adobe Flex 2 were available, including a configuration managment system, ShadoCMS, and a ColdFusion Framework for writing Flex apps based on CF backends. One session, "Extending AJAX with Flex", presented by Adobe evangelist Christophe Coenraets was all about extending the user experience, and ease of building Rich Internet Applications using Flex 2. Catch the seminar if you can as the tour progresses.