Reduing the layer complexity of a Cairngorm based application

Question

Could tools like SWFAddress be used in some clever ways to alleviate an existing client-server architecture. I see possibilities to even introduce REST-like pattern mapping or something like that.

What I am currently doing is following all the Cairngorm guidleines, which has already led to a bunch of commands which all make sense, but inclusing the business delegates, and all that stuff, I am getting into a hard time extending and refactoring the application (and actually layers were supposed to help, tight ... maybe I am not doing it quite right, I admit).

Anyway, what I thought of was somehow reducing the number of application events flying around, and the number of commands responding to them. Actualy, I am quite OK even coupling the view with some logic, if I can get rd of some layer complexity.

What I mean by that: perhaps, I could bind a button click to a url pattern (or use SWFaddress to change the url globally). On the other end, I wll be waiting for changes of the url, reformat it, and pass it onto a service delegate, which has the necessary mappings in mind, so it knows what method to call, or it could even pass the url directly to an HTTPSErvice. The delegate will then deal with the server response, and update the model, which through the bindings will update the view.

I am not going to completely ditch commands. I thing that they are good for scheduling of the internal interactions (within the client itself), but I'd like to abstain from using them for communication with the server.

Am I on the right path ?

Answer 1

Are you apposed to switching to an alternate framework than Cairngorm? You just described perfectly what most people's complaints are about it. I think it mostly exists from the throw back days of Flex development...

Most of the developers I know use a more "modern" framework, usually focusing on Dependency Injection (DI).

Here is a good starting point in analyzing the various frameowkrs in use today:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_framework.html

and for for further reading...

I personally prefer Swiz, and use it in all my projects. It still focuses on the command pattern, but alleviates a lot of the layer complexity, as you described.

If your questions was how can I make Cairngorm less like... well Cairngorm... then I'm afraid I can't help you there. :)

Cheers and good luck!