PHP Flash Remoting

I don't want to jump the gun too much because this is very new, but there has been a mild breakthrough in Flash / PHP communications in the form of PHP / Flash Remoting. To get the latest information on this visit the Flash-DB message boards:

http://www.flash-db.com/Board/


Mike

Mild???

lol

That's an understatement... let's put this in perspective....

Flash Comm Server License for 500 users:: $4999

PHP ASM/Remoting Solution for unlimited users:: $FREE

So... I'd say it's pretty big....

True!! I've done some things with the new PHP remoting and I have to say it's pretty cool. Kudos to Musicman and the folks over at flashdb.com who are making it happen.

Are there any "official" docs yet?

Clearly not from MM - the big 'mothership' as JD says... and I don't think we're likely to see any soon... MM tends to enjoy hiding things... which is fine. The community does a good enough job anyway.

Bokel was the first to 'decode' the format I think.... and he did it for the SOL file format... which Musicman applied to Remoting and voila! it works...

"That's an understatement... let's put this in perspective....

Flash Comm Server License for 500 users:: $4999"

You don't use FlashCom to perform remoting tasks...FlashCom is the server for streaming video and real-time multicast communication like text chat and video chat.

However, Flash Remoting MX still isn't cheap either, at a price of $999 per CPU. Still, quite a bit cheaper than FlashCom.

New technology... my question is: what is the advantage of using flash remoting over the usual flash/PHP interaction (I mean the use of LoadVars, XML...)?

I downloaded the whitepaper "Using Flash Remoting MX" and I didn't find out anything that couldn't be done the "old way". I ask myself if it's worth learning something new, less portable, and with no added value.

Please tell me the opposit.

Thx,
*M

Well, I haven't had the opportunity to try the new Remoting for PHP, so I'm not familiar enough with the API's to really give you a good rundown.

I can tell you, as a former MM employee, what MM sees as the benefits to using Remoting vs. XML in the platforms they support (CF, .NET, and Java).

1. Easier development. You can access server components without having to write any server code for formating data into XML or another format for Flash.

2. Provides better peformance for larger datasets. So if you're returning recordsets with only 5 or 6 records, then you're not going to see a whole lot of performance improvements vs. XML, but you will see improvement over recordsets of 100+ records, or somewhere thereabouts.

Once again, those numbers are approximations on my part, and I have no clue how the PHP Remoting stacks up to Remoting for any of the other platforms.

Yeah, I see the advantage in your ability to call PHP classes from inside your ActionScript. A true conduit between them makes anything possible -- any kind of data in any structure you need it. Sure you can do it the old way, but standardizing the way its done makes advancement of the technology more rapid. And I really really dig that.

I got banned from that forum. I just joined this morning and did not spam. I only had one post!!! What the heck is wrong with them?

Probably the biggest points to be made for remoting, are the bianry AMF format used for transporting data. It is much more lean than XML and doesn't have the overhead of parsing XML. The other being the ability to have data types created in flash automatically based o nthe data types sent from PHP. Something that had to be done manually with the traditional XML methods.

True, and with the addition of PEAR this is a really powerful and potentially fast platform. I just wish it could be taken beyond sourceforge status and "into prime time" — meaning MM's Devnet via tutorials and downloads.

Come on now, you really think MM is gonna put a free product that does essentially what theirs does on devnet, when they stand to lose out on thousands of dollars in revenue from the non-free remoting products? Remoting for Java and .NEt is lots of money.

Remoting w/ ColdFusion is MUCH easier and produces much less code than the PHP equivalent. CF has always been an app server scripting language for entry-level programmers, and its appeal continues to be in the realm of rapid development and easy ramp-up. Not to say there aren't some really good programmers coding in CF; rather, my point is I don't see PHP stealing any of CF's thunder. I want to see MM support PHP remoting. They have a whole PHP section on their website -- why not include a remoting subsection? The cat's out of the bag.

Hey I am not here to argue, but Macromedia owns ColdFusion, they have a stake in it whether it fails or succeeds, but they have no control over PHP and its development. The only reason they put a section on devnet, IMO is because of the outcry from the community to show what Dreamweaver can do with PHP. Furthermore how PHP can be used to pass data to flash in a traditional manner, ie XML, LoadVars, etc...

But they will gain nothing from acknowledging amfphp. Thats why none of the macromedia guys are even mentioning on their blogs, for that very reason, again IMO. As soon as they acknowledge it, they are basically saying, hey you can do for free what we want to charge you a whole bunch of money to do. Its just how I see it.

Are there any AMF-PHP weblogs yet?