With the right tool kit and
experience, you can create Web applications that look more like desktop
computer programs than typical Web pages. Flex and ColdFusion are two
programming tools produced by Adobe Systems Incorporated you can use
alone or together to create Rich Internet Applications or RIA Apple Mac
OS X, Windows, Linux, Unix, iOS and Android users.
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Adobe's Flex is a software
development kit or SDK for creating RIAs. You can create Flex
applications by purchasing Adobe Flash Builder or by downloading the
free Flex SDK. The Flex compiler converts ActionScript-based Flex code
into SWF files that run in Web browsers with a Flash or Adobe Air
runtime plug-in installed. Flex applications can access database servers
and execute server Web scripts written in PHP, Python or ColdFusion. In
November 2011, Adobe announced that it is in the process of making Flex
open source software and donating the code to the Apache Software
Foundation.
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Flex has been used to develop
online games, database front ends, email clients, catalogs, Web widgets
and Web-based multimedia applications. These applications look and
function the same on all Flash-enabled Web browsers and operating
systems. The Flex SDK can also create applications that run on Android,
Apple's iOS and BlackBerry mobile devices. While Flash applications
cannot run on Apple's iPhone and iPad devices, the Flex compiler can
create native, iOS Objective-C bytecode that will run and can be sold in
Apple's App Store.
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There are two components to
ColdFusion: the scripting language called ColdFusion Markup Language or
CFML and the server back end that interprets and executes CFML code.
Just like PHP and Active Server Pages code, CFML code is embedded within
a Web page. CFML code is contained within HTML-like tags whose element
names begin with "CF". Originally ColdFusion code ran on Windows
servers only. The latest versions of ColdFusion server, however, are
written in Java and can run on any operating system with a Java runtime
environment installed.
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Like Flex, ColdFusion uses an
ActionScript-based programming language to simplify the task of
developing Web applications. In addition, CFML code can be combined with
HTML5 and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML -- AJAX -- RIA development
techniques. CFML extends HTML by adding database access services and
data integration with Java and .NET server applications through Simple
Object Access Protocol or Soap communication protocols. ColdFusion has
been used for online retail storefronts, educational portals, hotel and
resort reservation systems and public sector service websites.
