Adobe Flash Builder (previously known as Adobe Flex Builder) is an integrated development environment (IDE) built on the Eclipse platform and speeds development of rich Internet applications (RIAs) and cross-platform desktop applications, particularly for the Adobe Flash platform. Support for cross-platform desktop applications was added in version 3 with the introduction of AIR.
Flash Builder offers built-in code editors for MXML and ActionScript and a WYSIWYG editor for modifying MXML applications. Flash Builder includes an interactive debugger allowing developers to step through code execution while inspecting variables and watching expressions. Flex Builder 3 added support for performance analysis. The profiling view displays statistical information about memory use in addition to function call execution time.
Rich Internet Application – abbreviated as RIA are Web-based applications that function as traditional desktop applications. Software installation is not required as they are deliverd by a web browser, however depending on the application you usually will need to have ActiveX, Java, Flash, or similar technologies installed on the client machine or browsers. Several RIA technologies are available free of cost such as Adobe Flash, Adobe flex, Microsoft Silverlight, Ajax and JavaFX.
ActionScript is a scripting language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (now owned by Adobe Systems). It is a dialect of ECMAScript(meaning it has the same syntax and semantics of the more widely known JavaScript), and is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash Player platform, used on Web pages in the form of embedded SWF files. The language itself is open-source in that its specification is offered free of charge and both an open source compiler (as part of Adobe Flex) and open source virtual machine (Mozilla Tamarin) are available.
Top 5 reasons:
- Easy to Learn and Use
- Mature Language and Framework
- Cross Browser Support
- Fast Development and Easy Integration
- Richest Visual Effect
Adobe Flex is a software development kit (SDK) released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications (in short RIAs) based on the Adobe Flash platform. Flex applications can be written using Adobe Flash Builder (previoulsly Adbobe Flex Builder) or by using the freely available Flex compiler from Adobe.
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