Adobe Flex
Adobe Flex/Air is a software development platform released by Adobe for the development of rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform.
I became interested in Flex when a colleague introduced me to it and how Flash applications could be developed but using traditional programming methodologies. It provides the ability to create rich interfaces and animations while being cross platform
Development
MXML is an XML-based markup language used in combination with ActionScript to create Flex based applications. Together they provide a programming model that is more familiar to traditional application developers.
MXML
MXML is used predominantly in the same vein as ASP.Net Winforms/Webforms, to describe the layout, positioning and proptery setting in markup of Flex/Air components that ultimately render down to base ActionScript code.
It should be noted that you can, using ActionScript alone, create entire applications without the need of MXML. MXML tags correspond to ActionScript classes or properties of classes. When you compile Flex application, Flex parses the MXML and generates the corresponding ActionScript classes. It then compiles these ActionScript classes into SWF bytecode which it stores in a SWF file.
ActionScript
ActionScript is the core language of Flash Player that allows you provide interactivity within applications. When using with MXML there are parallels in development with Javascript however unlike Javascript, ActionScript is ultimately what is compiled into a Flash swf file.
Components
While developing in Flex I have written a number of components. The first of these, a Flex Gallery component I have already listed on this site and can be found in the left hand menu. As time goes on I shall be adding more components to this list.