Flex + amfphp vs. flex +php&xml

Question

Here's the deal. I hear how great amfphp is, and how much
easier it is to develop flex applications with a PHP back end by
using amfphp, but I don't understand it at all. On the other hand,
I DO understand how to use POST in Flex to make PHP mysql queries,
convert the results into xml and then use the xml in flex. It seems
SO straightforward and easy to understand compared with
understanding everything going on in amfphp, but I can see that it
will be a pain to do all the coding to get what I want done doing
it that way. So is it worth it to figure out amfphp and flex
remoting, or should I just churn out the code using what I know?
I want to do things the smart way, but I looked at a couple
amfphp tutorials and I have absolutely no clue what is going on. I
feel like I have wasted the whole night, and not learned anything,
while I could have been working on the code to do it with xml. The
explanations in those tutorials seem to assume a HUGE amount of
knowledge that I don't have, and I can't really find tutorials that
explain things in newbie language. Plus, I don't even know what
other tutorials I should look at and understand before I even start
to understand the amfphp tutorials, so I'm not sure the amount of
time its going to take for me to learn everything I need.
To top it all off, I don't really even get what the benefit
is... Look at the code below from one tutorial -
http://www.sephiroth.it/tutorials/flashPHP/flex_remoteobject/page003.php.
Aside from the fact that I barely understand what is going on, just
how is this easier than outputting xml?

Answer 1

Maybe this will help explain...
http://blogs.adobe.com/mikepotter/2006/07/php_and_flex_js.html
Scott