Would you use Laszlo to develop a flash interface for a Java web application?

Question

If you have a Java-based web application (J2EE webapp - no matter what other basic frameworks are used), and you would like to introduce a Flash-based interface, would you use Laszlo or would you rather set ReST as an XML interface, as well Build and deploy a Flash application that uses this?

On the one hand, Lazlo is quite amazing - does for Flash what JSP does for HTML. It’s easy to work with. It fits nicely into the rest of the web application (which is based on the JSP).

On the other hand, it would be better to develop a complete Flash application, detachable from the server, and use the XML-over-HTTP mechanism to bind the two. This would have the added benefit that you could use the same XML interface for the front end of AJAX if necessary.

What would you do and why?

Answer 1

I would create a first-service contract, decompose them separately, and then write an RIA client to access them.

Getting to the first scheme, there is an additional advantage, which consists in the complete decoupling of the two during development. An RIA developer can create synthetic XML streams that will be used for data while waiting for services to arrive online.

Answer 2

I may have thought of Laszlo in the past, but today I will stay on the Java stack and use JavaFX .

Answer 3

Laszlo is a product that has never done this; it lacks an ecosystem of developers around it.

I would use Adobe Flex for the interface. The same advantages of using a markup language to create flash memory, but it has much more features for developers and open source projects. To exchange data, use either REST, or if you want to get smart, use BlazeDS.

Answer 4

OpenLaszlo is a complete RIA framework, so I'm sure you can “compile” its fully standalone application that communicates with the server via HTTP. It really is very similar to Flex. Flex has the advantage of a much wider community, a full-blown IDE and additional resources (Adobe), while OpenLaszlo is a bit more innovative in that you can deploy Flash or AJAX from a single code base.

Answer 5

I really spent some time on an implementation similar to what you offer. I had a built-in Open Laszlo interface built into a web page with a REST interface on Django (python MVC library) on a server and without an Open Laszlo server. It works quite well, but there are a few things that you need to pay attention to. Open Laszlo only supports GET and POST calls, so you cannot easily use the DELETE and PUT methods in your REST API. Another is the lack of community around Laszlo (as mentioned elsewhere). Sometimes I can hardly answer some basic questions when using Laszlo, especially around the XML HTTP API and XML replication functions within the framework. I personally have never seriously looked at the Backzlo back end server, as I need an open API that could be easily used by other clients.

All this suggests that the implementation really works and can be effective if you are ready to circumvent the limitations mentioned above. Plus Open Laszlo is free, which can be a really big plus if you are working on a budget.