Flex

Macromedia introduced Flex in 2004 so that developers could write web applications for the
nearly ubiquitous Flash platform. These applications benefited from the improved design,
usability, andportability that Flex made possible, dramatically changing the user experience.
These features are a cornerstone of Web 2.0, a new generation of Internet applications focused
on creativity andcollaboration.
Since the introduction of Flex, Macromedia—and now Adobe—has released versions 1.5, 2, 3,
4, and 4.5 of Flex. With each subsequent version, creating rich, compelling, intuitive applicationshas gotten easier, and the bar has been raised on users’ expectations of web applications.
Countless organizations have discovered the benefits of Flex and have built and deployed
applications thatrun on the Flash platform.
But Flex 1 and 1.5 were most definitely not mass-market products. The pricing, lack of IDE,
limited deployment options, and other factors meant that those early versionsof Flex were targeted
specifically for large and complex applications as well as for sophisticated developers and
development. However, with the new releases of the Flex product line, all this haschanged.
Flex 2 was released in 2006 and made Flex development a possibility for many more people,
as it included a free software development kit (SDK). With the open sourcing of Flex 3, and
theannouncement of free versions of Flash Builder for students, Flex development is within
the grasp of any developer with enough foresight to reach for it. The release of Flex 4 made it
even easier tobuild rich, efficient, cutting-edge applications, and streamlined the workflow
between designer and developer, greatly easing the process of bringing intuitive, compelling
designs to even more Flexapplications. In this latest release, Flex 4.5, Adobe has further
extended the reach of Flex, making it possible to deploy applications not only to browsers and
desktops, but to phones, tablets,...