DARE for AIR is a new project from Ted Patrick. It aims at providing the same ease of development for Adobe AIR as HTML, JavaScript and Ajax developers have been using for years, and does so by providing a local HTTP server. As the project website states:
Simply edit the file system and press refresh in the browser. It is that easy.
RJ Owen tried out the initial release:
I was honestly much more impressed than I thought I'd be with DARE. My experience with local servers in the past has been anything but painless - there's usually some slough of configuration files to set up and little properties I need to configure to get the thing running right. DARE installed quickly and I didn't have to do anything at all to get it up and running. The install process was everything it should be - clean, easy, and complete.
He also discovered another feature not described on the website:
It's worth noting that while DARE is targeted for the AJAX community, it has the capability of quickly wrapping SWF's too. If you're a flash or flex developer who doesn't want to bother building AIR apps through those interfaces, DARE provides an easy way to package your SWF in a simple AIR wrapper.
Unfortunately, at the moment, there is only a Mac version available.