I just responded to a post over on Alagad.com about using "homegrown" frameworks vs. using "regular" frameworks, and my comment quickly became a catalyst for a blog post of my own on that same topic.

Frameworks are a pretty common holy war these days. The phrases "always use frameworks!", and "which framework is best?" are both seen pretty regularly on blogs, message boards, or overheard at various user group meetings.

As a contractor, I don't always get to determine the requirements, or time lines, or technology stack that I have to be responsible for. And as such, I sometimes need to make difficult decisions.

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Nothing really "new" here. I've been posting my "CF9 WishList" thoughts on various other blogs, and decided I'd prefer to start compiling my list here on my own blog. The list as it stands currently...

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Thanks to Sean and everyone else involved in putting together last night's Bacfug meeting.

Here are some notes I jotted down throughout the evening (I'm still looking for a good deal on a MacBook Pro so I can move into this century...anyone?).

• Traffic was pure evil. It took two and a half hours to get down there last night! Phew! Fortunately I left early enough, and still managed to get to the meeting on time (though only barely).
• Flex 3 pricing will be lower! Yay! $249 for standard and $699 for Professional. Upgrades are $99 and $299 respectively...which puts them well within reasonable. (It's interesting that Flex 3 went down in price, while CF8 went up. Hmmm.)
• Why wasn't the parking garage open? It's pouring rain, there is a huge meeting, but the gate is down? It's usually up when I attend regular Bacfug meetings? (Fortunately I caught the parking attendant before she left and was able to get spot, rather than deal with street parking in the rain...but even the attendant didn't know anything about the meeting. They're usually up to date.)
• Free food and drinks! Yay! This makes up for having to pay for parking. heh. :)
• Better Mic/EQ for the speakers please. During the intro portion when folks were all taking turns making announcements, it was really hard to hear. A good chunk of this is probably because folks either a) don't know how to use a microphone or b) are self-conscious about hearing their own voice through the speakers (both of which are very common). May I suggest a mic with an extremely wide pickup pattern, and purchasing a limiter so the volume can be maxed out, while still maintaining even audio output? Just an idea.
• Luke from...oh his company name is escaping me...mentioned his Sprouts project. Sounds like a neat idea, definitely worth checking out.
• Flex 3 has some really sweet new features! As a general rule, I don't normally install beta software, so this was my first look at some of the upcoming goodies. Introductory Data Wizards and the Memory/Performance Profiling look especially swank!
• Source code refactoring too! The ability to find all the references to a class/variable/function and rename them automagically. Also the ability to know how many instances of class Foo are currently in use. Sweet!
• Got lots of useful info about AIR. I had initially thought it was closer to .NET and thus, didn't see it fitting into my upcoming projects. After last night's presentation, I think I have a better understanding of it...though I wouldn't mind another more technical "under the hood" discussion at some point. AIR somehow creates "native OS apps" when you run it (on Windows you can actually do "add/remove programs" and see them...unlike a "typical" Flash/Flex app. hmmm.). I'm still a bit fuzzy on how all of that works. Maybe I'll look into it more later on.
• Also discovered SQLite (which is used in/with AIR somehow to provide off-line database support). Yet another new geeky thing to check out! :)

I was contemplating making the drive down for tonight's Silvafug meeting (I can't make my local NorCalFlex meeting this week...last minute band practice), but with the weather being so terrible, I fear the drive would be insane.

Thanks again guys!

I've been trading emails with Sean Corfield on the Bacfug list today regarding CF8's ability to auto-generate Flex code. We're trying to come up with a real-world use case for when you would actually want to auto-generate Flex code from the server. Given the apparent fact that every time the data changes, a new SWF gets generated, we're at a loss. (Every time your data/content was updated, it would just create yet another used-only-once SWF file, and would keep doing so, until the hard drive fills up.)

Is anyone out there actually using this feature in the real world? Have you done any more than a "hello world" app in CF8, in which you were auto-generating Flex code as part of the output?

Right now, I'm thinking it's a neat parlor trick, but not much else. I would love to be proven wrong.

thanks. nolan