I've browsed through the LCDS documentation but found very little about how to actually set up Eclipse / Flash Builder to develop real LCDS applications where you write both Flex code (run on the client) and Java code (deployed to the server).
When creating a new project, there is a checkbox "Create combined Java/Flex project using WTP" (if you have WTP installed) which sounded promising but I honestly couldn't get it working. There was almost no documentation and if there was, it was misleading (see for instance "Using Flash Builder 4" where it says you always have to specify root folder and root URL - but these two settings are missing for combined Java/Flex projects). Also, when I started the default Tomcat server from withing FB, I could navigate to the final URL using my browser but it was only showing some HTTP 404 information (so the server was up and running but the bindings were somehow broken).
I eventually gave up and was looking for some other solution.
If you browse LCDS documentation, there are sections where they say something like "you now have to compile the .java file into a .class file and deploy it to your server" - and they give instructions on how to use 'javac' on command line. I guess that's not how the real development looks.
Right now, I'm thinking that maybe the right way is to create a Flex project for the client and Java project for the server (not J2EE project, just simple Java) and then somehow automate the process of deploying .class files (or compiling JAR file and deploying it).
What setup are you, experienced devs, using for real-world LCDS projects? And folks from Adobe, if you are listening, some documentation on the actual tooling around server-side development would be more than welcome. I found some hints in this article: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/data_management_apps.html but there should be more, much more.
Thanks,
Borek