I received a copy of Adobe's AS3 book by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson from the mn.swf usergroup. I am fairly new to AS3 but have been using design patterns with AS2 for quite awhile now. This book has been great stepping stone into AS3 and is very easy to follow and understand. All of my design pattern books, up to this point, have been for languages other than Actionscript. It is nice to actually have code samples in Actionscript. I would recommend this book to any actionscript developer (intermediate or advanced) that wants advanced knowledge to take their coding to the next level. -- Brad Bollinger, Developer, Ham in the Fridge
I am very thankful to have received this book from the mn.swf group. While I have not yet read this book cover to cover, my initial reaction is that this book f-ing rocks. It will be a very useful tool for anyone who is interested in making flexible and reusable flash/flex experiences. For those who already have a good grip on the patterns that are used in this book, it will be a great way to get an understanding of how to implement them using AS3. While I have been programming with patterns for awhile now I am still relatively new to many of the concepts, and am far from mastering them. As Brad said, this is also the first book that I have owned on design patterns that is written specifically for actionscript developers. I doubt you will find a better learning tool on the subject out there right now. My only complaint about this book is that there is a fairly high number of errors in the code examples. Although most of them are easy to catch for the average programmer (especially if you are using Flex) and will not cause you too many headaches. -- Dennis Evert, Interactive Developer, OLSON
This book has three fairly different sections, so I will address them in order. The first part concerns 'Successful Projects' and I found it to be full of good advice regarding project management, design, and coding best practices. Another great book in this area would be Code Complete. Unfortunately, this section is fairly short and sweet, at around 30 pages. However, this is not the intended focus of the book, either.
The second section concerns 'Patterns' and at near 140 pages is the largest of the three. I would not suggest this book to someone who is learning patterns for the first time. For that, I would suggest something like Head First Design Patterns, and I've heard that even Patterns for Dummies is good. What AAWDP does well is show you how to implement patterns in the AS3 context. Some of these implementations can get complicated and at times difficult to track what the full intentions/implications of the pattern is having in the application. I really prefer to see pattern example implementations in a more stripped down format, for easy digestion. In reality, patterns are language agnostic, so you should be able to implement them no matter what the language. However, as the title of this book clearly states, these patterns are for AS3, so if you’re having trouble figuring out how to implement the included patterns, then this text is for you.
Finally, part III covers 'Advanced AS Topics' and this is another winner in my book. It follows a kind of cookbook format, with distinct problems and solutions, always following some decent best practices. The section on E4X (XML) is great, because I have a fairly good handle on the topic, and was still able to learn from it.
In my estimation, this book does best when showing you the 'Advanced' features and not quite as strong in the 'Patterns', but is still worth picking up. I have a feeling I'll be learning something new, every time I open this densely packed read. -- Scott Langeberg
This is a great book for developers making the journey from AS2 to AS3. The authors have done a fine job not only addressing common situations as with most cookbooks, but also addressing new features for those of us who have been heavily developing in AS2. This book covers code specifics as well as the tools (Flex Builder and Eclipse) for development workflow. As noted in the book, you don't have to read this book cover to cover, it's a fantastic desk companion for looking up specific problems and solutions. May not be for entry level, but overall I think the authors cover topics to address readers from a wide range of knowledge base. -- Ross Techner, Interactive Designer, OLSON
The book is well written and easy to understand. The authors do a good job of explaining the workings of each recipe with a good amount of introduction to each new topic. Although the book covers the AS 3.0 concepts very well it did not do a good job of presenting them in recipes. I've used other O Rielly cookbooks (Perl cookbook for example) in the past and I must say that the recipes offered in this one were not as engaging. I typically browse cookbooks for neat things you can learn how to do and I didn't find as many interesting recipes in this one. Another fact that made the cookbook difficult to use was that in some cases the examples given in the recipes were far more complicated than they needed to be. As an example you can take a look at the drag and drop recipe. Although the explanation does a good job of describing the recipe, the example given was a mini application. In my opinion a recipe book or any other reference book should try to do its best to keep the example code as simple as possible to make sure that the topic is covered and not try to present a working application of several pages of code for an example. Basically the goal should be to present the "Hello World" version for each topic to make sure the reader sees only what is absolutely necessary for a specific topic and nothing more. It is ok to have code that simply explains the feature but is of no discernable use other a teaching tool leaving the actual application to the reader. Giving large examples confuses the reader for two reasons. First: the user is not sure exactly which parts of the larger code is necessary for the recipe. Second: cookbooks are typically used as needed as in you typically have a need and search through a cookbook to meet that need. If the example is large and uses other concepts from different chapters, it becomes difficult for the user to grab and go. It is ok to have larger working code but perhaps that should be an addition as an appendix instead of the example within the recipe. Aside from this issue I found the book to be a good one. -- Saviz Artang
This book was very well organized and laid out in such a way that it made searching for practical, real-world usages a breeze. The biggest strength of the text was in the "quick to the point" summation for each topic. This is a book that can be immensely useful without completely reading it! -- Ryan Neuharth, Web Architect, Pearson VUE
The ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook is easy to understand, well laid out and gives information on not only ActionScript 3.0 but also the tools used to create it. Its not a book for a true beginner since some of the examples are a bit more complicated than expected, but for someone with a little background in ActionScript, it will be a great companion book to have on one's desk. There are many recipes in the book ranging from simply working with strings to more complicated processes like simulating playing cards. My only complaint with the book is many of the solutions refer you to a downloadable code base developed by the authors – handy if you need a quick solution, but may not be the best option for some learners. Overall though, I'd recommend this book and glad to have it a part of my collection. -– D.C. Holth
Great read – this book covers all the main things you’d want to know before making the decision to develop an application in Flex. I especially like how features that can be done in many different ways (for instance ActionScript and MXML) are explained each way – very helpful. Even gets into some advanced topics like creating your own custom components. -- Jason Grey, Director of Interactive Architecture, Internet Boradcasting Systems