Gaurav

Using RubyAmf for creating a CRUD application in Rails

CRUD applications can be easily created using Ruby on Rails as the backend and Flex as the frontend app using the XML format as demonstrated here.

Another way to create such applications is using the AMF protocol which is optimized for network communications and stores objects in binary format so consumes less bandwidth. Another compelling reason for using this library is that it doesn’t feel like a hack as it integrates very nicely with Rails :)

The Ruby port of this protocol known as RubyAmf can be downloaded from from here. More information about this protocol can be found here.

Lets start making the application.

Create a Rails Application:

   1: > rails amf_demo

This will create a rails application. Please note that I am using Rails 2.1.2 for this example and it is not tested on any other Rails version.

Generate a scaffold:

   1: > ruby script/generate scaffold blog_post title:string body:text

Create Tables and run Migrations:

   1: > rake db:migrate

   1: > rake db:create

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Using Flex with Ruby on Rails

This is the second blog post in a series of three posts comparing Flex with Silverlight. In my previous post I demonstrated how to integrate a scaffolded Rails application with Silverlight. Here I will be showing the same with Flex. The steps needed to create the Rails application are also mentioned here.

Creating a new Flex project:

Open Flex builder and create a new Flex project.

Leave all the options to default and click Finish. A blank project is now created for you.

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Using Silverlight with Ruby on Rails

In this post I will be showing a really simple example of creating a Silverlight frontend for a Rails backend. This is what I think will be a three part series comparing Silverlight with Flex.

The steps will be:

1. Creating a Rails application.
2. Creating a frontend for it in silverlight.
3. Creating a frontend for it in Flex.
4. Comparing the approaches taken in both the frontends.

I will try to keep changes in the backend Rails application to a minimum.

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Setting up BlazeDS with Flex

Let me give some introduction first.

BlazeDS is a server-based Java remoting and web messaging technology that allows to connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time to Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR rich Internet applications (RIA). Because of its open licensing, BlazeDS is not precluded from being used with other client platforms, such as JavaScript/AJAX. (wikipedia)

Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform, rich Internet applications based on the proprietary Adobe Flash platform. The initial release in March 2004 by Macromedia included a software development kit, an IDE, and a J2EE integration application known as Flex Data Services. Since Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, subsequent releases of Flex no longer require a license for Flex Data Services, which has become a separate product rebranded as LiveCycle Data Services. (wikipedia)

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