| | |  | Software Engineering | Home » » » Learning ActionScript 3.0: A Beginner's Guide | | | | | | | Description: | | In this book, authors Rich Shupe and Zevan Rosser share the knowledge they've gained from their years as multimedia developers/designers and teachers. Learning ActionScript 3.0 gives you a solid foundation in the language of Flash and demonstrates how you can use it for practical, everyday projects.
The authors do more than just give you a collection of sample scripts. Written for those of you new to ActionScript 3.0, the book describes how ActionScript and Flash work, giving you a clear look into essential topics such as logic, event handling, displaying content, migrating legacy projects to ActionScript 3.0, classes, and much more. You will learn important techniques through hands-on exercises, and then build on those skills as chapters progress.
ActionScript 3.0 represents a significant change for many Flash users, and a steeper learning curve for the uninitiated. This book will help guide you through a variety of scripting scenarios. Rather than relying heavily on prior knowledge of object-oriented programming (OOP), topics are explained in focused examples that originate in the timeline, with optional companion classes for those already comfortable with their use. As chapters progress, the book introduces more and more OOP techniques, allowing you to choose which scripting approach you prefer.
Learning ActionScript 3.0 reveals: - New ways to harness the power and performance of AS3
- Common mistakes that people make with the language
- Essential coverage of text, sound, video, XML, drawing with code, and more
- Migration issues from AS1 and AS2 to AS3
- Simultaneous development of procedural and object-oriented techniques
- Tips that go beyond simple script collections, including how to approach a project and which resources can help you along the way
The companion web site contains material for all the exercises in the book, as well as short quizzes to make sure you're up to speed with key concepts. ActionScript 3.0 is a different animal from previous versions, and Learning ActionScript 3.0 teaches everything that web designers, GUI-based Flash developers, and those new to ActionScript need to start using the language.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Rich Shupe | | Paperback:
| 384 pages | | Publisher:
| O'Reilly/Adobe Developer Library | | Publication Date:
| January 04, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 059652787X | | Product Length:
| 9.74 inches | | Product Width:
| 7.98 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.98 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.93 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 85 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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393 of 416 found the following review helpful:
 The more I read it, the more I hate it.Apr 18, 2008
By Rob T
"robtish"
First, please note that many of the 5-star reviews are written by experienced Flash professionals, who already have actionscript expertise -- and that makes them poor judges of how clear this book will be to a beginning audience.
The book is explicitly written for beginners, but the authors often have a poor grasp on what readers know. On one page they start talking about "trapping" events. What does that mean? Who knows?
I have a good math background, so I was able to decipher the math chapter, but it contains explanations like, "A radian is the angle of a circle subtended by an arc along its circumference that is the length of the circle's radius (hence the name, radian)." What's the point of writing a sentence like that? Will it be understood by anyone who doesn't already know what a radian is? Has a math newbie even ever heard the word "subtend"? This casual use of undefined jargon happens in every chapter.
Also, sometimes they're just wrong. They say that a ball moving 4 pixels to the right and 4 pixels down per second will have a velocity of 4 pixels per second in a south southeast direction. No. The Pythagorean theorem (which they explain, badly, in the next section), says the ball will be moving more than 5.6 pixels per second. And the direction is southeast.
The book really is full of typos, and they're not all caught in the errata. The only way to know if the code is correct is to to go the website and download the code being discussed in the book. The files you download will have the correct code (though before you check the code, as you're reading the book you're thinking, "Do I not understand, or is this code wrong?") Unfortunately, the book sometimes refers to these files by the wrong name, so you have to figure out which file to open. That's really inexcusable -- how hard would it be for the authors to go to their own website and correctly name the files?
Another random, infuriating example of the book's sloppiness: on page 144, the authors state a line of code "g.curveTo(275, 0, 400, 100);". In the context of the chapter, the hardest part of this code to understand is the "275, 0" and it's the one part they don't bother to explain!
And as long as I'm ranting (I just threw the book down to come and write this), the authors often put unnecessary lines into the code. I'm left trying to figure it out, wondering, "Why did they put that there? Is it necessary?" so I try the code without the extra material, and it still works fine. But the authors never explain why it's there, so while you're trying to learn to read actionscript, wanting to understand the importance of each line and its relationship to the rest of the example, you're thinking, "Am I just missing the importance of this line? Or does it have no importance?" Learners shouldn't be left to wonder those things!
It's a maddening book, full of unexplained terminology (I just found the phrase, "dedicated canvas"; huh?), incomplete explanations, bloated code, and many, many errors.
41 of 47 found the following review helpful:
Not for a beginnerJul 30, 2008
By Lou Costello
""hey abbott""
I'm a beginner to Flash but not to scripting, programming and graphical applications in general. If you're looking for a true beginners book skip this one. The book states right on the cover that its aimed at "those new to ActionScript, visual learners" Well I've programmed in many languages, and am fluent in all kinds of applications and this book is definitely NOT targeted at a non-programmer or a beginner.
The book immediately jumps to jargon frequently asking the reader to ignore the jargon as it will be explained later. For example the initial chapters are laced with descriptions of "class" but the actual discussion of class does not occur until chapter six. That's a long time to go trying to read pages of class discussion with no clear definition.
The book states clearly that it is not a reference. This means it can avoid creating a strong set of appendices or a good glossary. Don't know a term (which if you're new you won't), don't turn to this book to fill it in. Want a list of possible commands - look elsewhere.
The book claims to be for "visual learners" yet most of the examples do virtually nothing visually. Instead the example are a bunch of esoteric theoretical examples meant to give you the "philosophy" about using a particular command or structure, instead of a commonplace example. When the commonplace examples are given, frequently they're at the end of the chapter and not described - instead "by now you should be able to understand how this code works."
The book does not strongly tie ActionScript to the flash timeline (this will get me flamed). Sure they state often that you now can tie your actions to objects, but if you're a beginner then you need to describe how.
The book is on its first printing and is filled with errors and typos. Luckily I have a background in working with edge programs and first printings always come with this burden. Here the burden is deadly to the beginner who can easily spend hours trying to figure out whats going wrong only to learn it was a typo.
Now all that said, this is a good book. The authors are trying. I think the real problem is the authors are use to teaching this subject in person to a class, using the book as a class guide. With an instructor available the book could be used. However without an instructor present, this is a terrible uphill battle.
18 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Starting Point for Migrating to ActionScript 3Aug 03, 2008
By Alexander C. Baker
"Local Hero"
I first became interested Learning ActionScript 3 after initially reading a few samples posted on Adobe's website. What I found was an excellent starting point that drove me to finally make the jump from ActionScript 1 and 2. In practice, most books I have read about ActionScript 3 focus on the Flex platform, which is outside of what I'm looking for. Rather, I needed something that focused on developing in the Flash IDE (Flash CS3 as of this review), which is exactly what this book is written for.
I picked it up as supplement material to aid me in programming a large game programming project. Basically, I've referenced this book to understand the key concepts needed for my game, borrowing code samples where needed and applying them to my own project. In practice, it's the application here that really teaches the concept, and I've found that this book is a great starting point as well as reference for grasping these concepts.
The authors have done a great job presenting the material in an easily-readable casual conversation style. Of these discussions, I particularly found their comparisons to the previous versions of the language most satisfying. As AS3 is very different from AS1/2, I appreciate learning what was changed and why.
I can not vouch for the beginner's guide level for this book. I came into this book as an intermediate ActionScript programmer and often found myself skimming over any discussion on the details of some of the programs. For the most part, the code is easy enough to read and get the point, and if I had questions, these were almost always addressed in the discussion. That said, I think this book is ideal for any intermediate programmer looking to make the jump to AS3.
I am aware that there are some errata in this book, and to that extent, I can simply comment that the website is well maintained, code samples there seem accurate. No problems here.
All in all, I would highly recommend Learning ActionScript 3 as a great companion book for anyone looking to get started programming with ActionScript 3.
13 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Did anyone proof this book? Way too many typos.Apr 09, 2008
By Running Bill
I'm surprised a book by O'Reilly was released with this many typos. I've been going through it and typing the tutorials that were new material for me. The amount of mistakes is just unacceptable, especially that many times it happens in code. The code is correct in the examples from their web site which begs the question, why didn't they just cut and paste it from the WORKING examples? The errata on their web site has a few of the mistakes but I've found many more.
Anyway, apart from the ridiculous number of typos it is an OK book. I don't think its the be-all Flash book like some people on here that have been raving, but it is a good stepping stone book to learning some OOP. Its very practical and eases you from timeline code into classes. Most Flash books seem to go all timeline or all OOP, so good job to them for understanding their audience. Another knock I have is that in many examples they try to show you additional techniques apart from the main thing they are trying to illustrate. Normally I would applaud this because you just learn more, but too often here it just confuses. My last issue with the book is that it sometimes fails to explain an important element of code or give you a really vague explanation, even if that is the purpose of the exercise! Personally I want to know why I'm typing every line in so I can be more flexible when I write my own code, as opposed to blindly memorizing and hoping I remember it when I need it.
All in all, you won't go wrong with this one, but it is by no means perfect. It could've been great. Its not. But its still good and worth a purchase.
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Many Errors -Do Not ReccomendJul 09, 2008
By B. Luv
I just hate trying to learn from a book that has errors! Is it that hard to get someone to check a book before releasing it? First of all, many of the example files that are available for download are named different than the book says they are. A lot of the code in the exercises doesn't even work! I spent hours unsuccessfully trying to do one of the exercises before I realized the code was incorrect. I had to sort through the misnamed example files and get the correct code, that should have been in the book. O'REILLY is getting worst and worst.
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