Last year I led a software project that employed a SOA architecture and a Flex UI.  The features we were able to build with FlexBuilder (now FlashBuilder) were pretty sweet and remarkably easy…  I’ve become a huge fan of Flex as a result.

The new FlashBuilder 4 provides some powerful new tools for integrating with various back-end services. Connecting to SOAP services is now, frankly, dead-simple. I’ve written two articles on this topic, both of which are now live on DevX.com:

• Build a Simple Map Client with SOAP in Flash Builder 4, Part I
• Create a Map Client with Web Services, Part II

The articles come with a starter project and walk you through how to connect to a SOAP service and build a functional Map client in a relatively short amount of time.  Unfortunately there’s been some sort of a mix-up on DevX and the download links for the project aren’t working yet.  In the meantime, you can download them here:

• Initial Project (start with this) : terraclient_initial.fxp
• Project by the end of Part 1: terraclient_part1.fxp
• Project by the end of Part 2: terraclient_part2.fxp
  

  Flex + SOAP map client

I’ll keep these downloads available until DevX fixes the problem on their end.  Sorry for the inconvenience.