Cairngorm vs PureMVC : a quick comparison

After watching Ali Mills and Luke Bayes presentation comparing the available Flex Frameworks I decided it was time to have a much closer look at PureMVC. After spending some time getting familiar with PureMVC it is hard to argue with their conclusion that PureMVC does a better job of solving many of the potential problems of using an MVC pattern. PureMVC is less dependant on Singletons, individual components are more reusable because they have fewer dependancies and there is less repeatition in setting up new functions within the framework. Despite all of these benefits I'm not convinced that this makes PureMVC a clear winner.

Towards the end of the Framework comparison presentation it is pointed out that Cairngorm is the framework that all Flex developers need to know. Well it would be nice if there were a few more developers in Melbourne who know Flex. Let alone developers with an understanding of Flex Frameworks. So the question I asked myself is if I had to train someone new next week who was unfamiliar with any Flex Frameworks which Framework would I want to teach them. The following table lists the concepts you need to understand for Cairngorm development compared to PureMVC. What is immediately evident is that there is a lot more to learn to get up to speed with PureMVC. To achieve a cleaner/purer framework PureMVC has added more complexity and this is a problem when you need to train people to use a Framework. When we started using Cairngorm it didn't take long to explain the basics of the Framework. But I think it would take a lot more explanation to get started on PureMVC despite the similarities in the two frameworks.

Cairngorm	PureMVC
Model View Controller Command CairngormEvent Delegate Service	Model View Controller Command Facade Proxy Mediator Observer Notification

Flex Frameworks Reviewed

Just spent some time watching a presentation by Ali Mills and Luke Bayes which reviews the available Flex Frameworks. If you are looking for an up to date summary of the available Flex Frameworks you really can't go past this presentation. If I were to summarise their findings it's that most Frameworks are still too immature. The two exceptions they identified were Cairngorm and PureMVC. They felt that Cairngorm was too tightly coupled to it's Singleton's and that this made unit testing very problematic. In contrast they were very taken with PureMVC. They felt it was a more elegant solution despite it's use of Singleton's. If you are interested in Flex and Frameworks you should watch this very informative presentation.

Update : a post presentation debrief (with link to presentation) is available. The most interesting addition here for me is the following quote :

"Doug McCune brought up a really great point about Cairngorm. He mentioned that if you’re a contractor that is working on other people’s projects and going from client to client, the only framework that you must know is Cairngorm. He made the point that it’s the most likely Application Framework that you’ll encounter within the enterprise. We both agreed with that point, but added that you should investigate PureMVC as the very next step."