So I came across some very exciting news today… Adobe Labs has released a beta of a Flex compiler that runs on your server.

The Flex module for Apache and Microsoft IIS provides web-tier compilation of MXML and ActionScript files on Apache and IIS web servers. This module lets you rapidly compile, test and deploy an application by simply requesting the main application file from a web browser, similar to working with server-side scripting languages such as PHP, ColdFusion or JSP.
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You do not need a J2EE application server to use the web-tier compiler. The Flex module for Apache and IIS works with just the web server and a Java runtime environment (JRE).

So what does this mean to me?

No more compiling then posting, easier collaborative development, easier source management, lower step in for other developers into the world of Flex. I wonder what it will be like to develop an HTML/JavaScript app with Flex and then use this Apache Flex module… I also wonder how it performs and if that initial compilation time competes with just calling a pre-compiled Flex app.
In the meantime, I’m going to play with it on my local dev machine and see if it allows me to use a development process that’s more familiar to me.