The best Flex Framework you have used so far

Question

I have been seeing some Flex Frameworks, but would like to ask to the programmers and Architects down here on which has suited best in your application.

• Cairngorm
• Pure MVC
• Mate Framework

Custom One.

Answer 1

PureMVC.... I like to have control and not relying on data binding... also since its been ported in different languages it has more value in my book than just a Flex only framework. Overall any MVC architecture is a plus in my book and it comes down to personal coding style/preference.

Answer 2

Cairngorm, and when I can't use Cairngorm (say, when using Flash CS3), I will simulate it (and it is really easy to duplicate conceptually). It is easy to set up, stupid simple, lightweight, and fast. If done correctly, it also forces a VERY clear separation of form and content. It fits in brilliantly with the native Flex classes and exploints data binding to the fullest. Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that it is the standard which Adobe explicitly endorses. Further, it is by far the most popular, which means if you need other people to be brought in and work on your projects, it will be far easier to find people who know Cairngorm than people who know the alternatives.

I find PureMVC incredibly bloated, non-ActionScript intuitive, and generally useless unless you work in a 99% Java company that does a very small amount of work with Flex and you want to have both use the same system.

I don't know anything about the rest.

Answer 3

After using, in turn, all three of frameworks you listed, I can easily conclude that Mate is by far the superior framework. Of course, that's only my opinion and determining what makes a framework superior differs depending on your requirements.

To me, Mate's most appealing feature is how well it separates the different tiers of your application. After becoming familiar with it, I could never go back to using a framework that makes extensive use of global-state "Singletons" (Cairngorm, PureMVC).

However, Mate can probably be a bit difficult getting started with as the documentation is still a bit lacking and outdated, making it hard to know where to find the newest information. Some of the best practices and approaches that have been ironed out are to be found in the Mate forums, requiring some digging through posts. One of the most active users on that forum, Theo, has written a very good summary on the benefits of Mate in the following post:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37043/flex-mvc-frameworks