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Responding to Feedback on my "Flash Data Connection Kit" Article

Home » Responding to Feedback on my "Flash Data Connection Kit" Article

In response to my article on the Flash Data Connection Kit (at http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/articles/data_conn.html) many of you have written to me asking about comments I made as to how to use (or not use) the Firefly components in production environments. Some of the specific questions pertain to my recommending that the SQL Connector not be used, that a generic XML delta packet processor not be implemented, and that table names or other database specific information not be embedded directly in the Flash application.
The truth of the matter is that the validity of my concerns really depends on where the application is being used, and whether or not it is being used in a trusted environment (by trusted users). There is nothing inherently wrong or bad in doing any of those things that I advised against, but doing so does require making some core assumptions that worry me.
The underlying concern here is this: I have a fundamental problem with anything running on the client side of an HTTP connection being able to directly affect SQL statements being executed against a database. Put it this way, would you ever display the SQL that your application page were to execute in an editable

7 responses to “Responding to Feedback on my "Flash Data Connection Kit" Article”

  1. Sudhaman Srinivasan Avatar
    Sudhaman Srinivasan

    is there a FlashMX/DataConnectionKit/Remoting/CFMX WACK in the pipeline?

  2. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    No, not a dedicated book on all of those. But there is a book on Flash in the works that should be what you want.

  3. David Franco Avatar
    David Franco

    What and when, pray tell, is the name of this book and its expected completion?

  4. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    The book is being written by Nate Weiss (my CFWACK coauthor, and one of the best tech writers I know). It is tentatively called "Flash for Server Geeks" :-). I don”t know what the release date is, but keep an eye on his web page http://www.nateweiss.com/.

  5. Jack Phillips Avatar
    Jack Phillips

    Ben, there seems to be some little problem with Flash Data Connection Kit tutorial. I and several others went through it and came to the same end. We can add, edit and view the delta packets, but the responder won’t actually save the data to the DB. On the last page you invoke ‘doSave’. (Call saveUpdates)
    Up until that point, everything went very well, but no saved data. I am also trying to find reference to ‘saveUpdates’. It is only mentioned one other time on the MM site. There is a hack being discussed on the MM forum but it is going in the wrong direction. I have $600 of mine and my bosses money into the FF Flash Data Connection Kits and I have been making a fool of my self trying to get something to show him for his money. I just want to add, edit, and delete data from a database, from a FF interface to justify the expense for the software. Can you please help us? Did you actually get data to save?

  6. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    Jack. I ran through every step, and it does indeed update. The suggestion in the forum is incorrect, you do need need to add the deltaData arg, it is there by default, and the default setting is correct. The only explicit parameter that you need for the updates to work is identifying the primary key in the resolver.

  7. Gary Spaniola Avatar
    Gary Spaniola

    Ben, I went over the tutorial many times and I can’t get the users.cfc to insert data. What am I missing.
    Thanks – Gary

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