Book excerpt: Whether you're a Flex 3 beginner or intermediate user, this book provides the necessary information to help you develop into an expert. Using a practical hands-on approach, it illustrates exactly how to create robust and scalable enterprise-grade rich Internet applications (RIAs). The book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the architectural and design aspects of Flex 3 application development. It explains the internals of a Flex 3 application and advocates a few best practices to fine-tune your application to ensure maximum performance. It includes tutorials on creating custom components, data binding, and creating AIR-powered desktop applications. The second part concentrates on effectively integrating Flex 3 with server- and client-side technologies. Techniques for integration with Java and PHP are covered in detail, and content covering interaction with client-side technologies is also included. After reading the chapter on JavaScript integration, you will be ready to create applications that can use Ajax and Flex 3 together. The third and final part of the book is a unique and eclectic mix of some advanced topics like mash-ups, collaborative applications, 3D rendering, highly interactive visualization, and audio and video streaming. In summary, through reading this book, you will benefit from the wealth of information and years of experience the authors hold, and will then be ready to cruise with comfort in the world of Flex 3 application development on your own.