Flex Builder 3 Requirements

Got an email today from a CFUG member inquiring about what you really need to get started with Flex. He kindly included a list of items that are very unclear on the Adobe site, so I figured I'd summarize here.

Starting, unfortunately, with the download page.

What you should download: Flex Builder 3 Professional. It'll clock in at over 400MB, not the advertised 169. Don't have a clue where they got that number from.

What you don't need to download: anything else, INCLUDING the Flex 3 SDK. That's for folks who don't need the development environment or the charting tools. In all likelihood, that's not you (today).

On the system requirements page, I've crossed off the stuff you don't need to trouble yourself with on day 1, using the standalone version of Flex Builder:

FLEX BUILDER 3 FOR WINDOWS (STANDARD AND PROFESSIONAL)

• Intel® Pentium® 4 processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista® Home Premium
• 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended)
• 500MB of available hard-disk space (additional 500MB required for plug-in configuration)
• Java™ Virtual Machine: Sun™ JRE 1.4.2, Sun JRE 1.5 (included), IBM® JRE 1.5, or Sun JRE 1.6
• Eclipse™ 3.2.2 for plug-in configuration (Eclipse 3.3 recommended for Windows Vista)
• Adobe® Flash® Player 9 software*
• BEA Workshop 10.1
• IBM Rational Software Architect 7.0.0.3 (Eclipse 3.3 plug-in configuration only)

Odds are you already have a decent JVM if you've been doing CF development already. Flash Player will be installed by the FB installer, so scratch that too.

Eclipse is not the easiest thing to get used to if you're accustomed to Dreamweaver or HomeSite (that's putting it mildly!). Hope this helps! Feel free to ping manager@phillycfug or drop a comment if you have any other questions.