Macromedia today announced their newest product, Macromedia Flex. This is the final name for what was previously coded as Royale. This is a great product that Chafic and I have had the privilege to be involved with over the past several months. With Flex it is so easy to snap together all your components with a very straightforward XML grammar. Then you can attach your AS2 classes to control the whole application. It lets you concentrate on the specifics of your application and greatly improves the entire development process.

The hope here is that Macromedia Flex will bring RIA development beyond Macromedia’s current aficionados. Flex is a server-side product meant to be easy for Java and .NET programmers to pick up and integrate into their applications. By using declarative XML syntax and familiar application and form based concepts as well as the OOP friendly AS2 language, Flex is far better for traditional programmers developing RIA’s as compared to Macromedia Flash. With Flex you never need to worry about animation-related concepts found in Flash such as the stage or timeline. This will make component based development even more important in the future.

This expanded market also will be a boon for component developers, which can now be sold to both Macromedia Flash and Macromedia Flex developers.

Macromedia Flex is in beta now and due out early next year. To read more about Flex from Macromedia click here. To apply for the beta program click here.