<p>I have an application written in java, and I want to add a flash front end to it. The flash front end will run on the same computer as the java app in the stand alone flash player. I need two way communication between the two parts, and have no idea how to even start going about this. I suppose I could open a  socket between the two programs, but I feel that there must be an easier way. Is there a nice part of the api in actionscript 3.0 that will allow me to access java methods directly, or will I have to resort to sockets? I am relatively new to flash, by the way, so any good guides would be much appreciated!</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

AMF
is a messaging protocol commonly used to talk between flash and a backend system. There're several Java implementations, but I haven't used any of them so can't tell you which is best.
Blaze DS
Red5
Granite DS
Flash can also talk plain old XML, SOAP or REST to the backend, so depending on your codebase that might be easier.