Historically, most Internet application interfaces are built in HTML. Because HTML applications are page-based, they demand complete page refreshes when information is submitted to a server, as well as when a client navigates from one page to another. Each page load uses network bandwidth and server resources. In addition, application logic typically executes on the server rather than on the client, which requires a server request and response to process any data.
Applications running in Flash Player behave like desktop applications, instead of a series of linked pages. Flash Player manages the client interface as a single, uninterrupted flow and does not require a page load from the server when the client moves from one section of the application to another.
Flex offers the following additional benefits to your web applications:
Standards-based architecture Macromedia designed Flex, ActionScript, and MXML, the Flex scripting language, to existing standards. MXML is XML-compliant, implements styles based on the Cascading Style Sheets, level 1(CSS1) specification, and implements an event model based on a subset of the W3C DOM Level 3 Events specification. ActionScript is an ECMAScript-based language that provides support for object-oriented development. The Flex server executes on standard J2EE platforms or servlet containers.
Reduction in server load and network bandwidth Some or all of the presentation tier of a Flex application runs in Flash Player, which means that no application server processing resources are spent on data formatting. By off loading presentation logic to the client, and eliminating the need for frequent page refreshes, Flex applications minimize network traffic and server load.
Common deployment environment Flex applications deploy on a J2EE server and execute on Flash Player, which is platform-independent, so customers do not need to install custom client software. Also, Flash Player runs consistently in all browsers and platforms, so you do not have to worry about inconsistent behavior in different client environments.
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