Chase Brammer Thinking in Code

Proxy Debugger

Proxy debugger... sounds exciting right?  Well, you are right my good sir!  In all seriousness though, the most useful tool I use in conjunction with flex builder is easily Charles. If you are using AMF or getting data from a web server in any way and you want to see what you are getting back in an easy to read, easy to use way - then Charles is your man.

Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information).

Charles is especially useful for Adobe Flash developers as you can view the contents of LoadVariables, LoadMovie and XML loads. Charles also has native support for Flash Remoting (AMF0 and AMF3).

If you develop in flex, and don't use Charles, you should get to know him.