Product Description

* Learn object-oriented programming in actionscript 3.0 * Covers both the Flash and Flex environments * Includes design patterns, custom frameworks, data binding, and other crucial techniques Object-oriented programming (OOP) is something that is usually considered a black art for hardcore programmers, not a topic of conversation for Flash developers. However, when adobe introduced actionscript 3.0 to the mix, it changed everything. actionscript 3.0 is much more powerful than previous versions, allowing Flash developers to produce robust object-oriented applications. but with that power comes great responsibility—OOP is now a requirement, rather than optional, and there are new things to learn. But never fear—this book, based on the ever-popular Object-Oriented ActionScript for Flash 8, provides you all you need to delve into the world of OOP with confidence, whether you are using the Flash IDE, Flex builder, or even command-line tools for your development work. First, you are taken gently through all the principles of OOP that you need to know, and then given a guide to designing and implementing applications in actionscript 3.0. Next, we step up a gear, showing you the Flex builder development environment and teaching about creating reusable, extensible component frameworks—manager classes, animation and effects classes, UI widgets, and more. lastly, we look at some more advanced topics such as communication between Flash and the browser and Web services. case studies are included that apply the knowledge presented, giving you real-world projects to learn from and adapt for use in your own work. Mastering object-oriented programming is essential for modern Flash development, and Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 is the only guide you'll need. In this book you'll learn: * the essential principles of object-oriented programming, including inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and more * Valuable lessons on actionscript 3.0 project planning and programming, including design patterns and source control * How to create your own extensible, reusable application framework using OOP best practices * Advanced data integration techniques such as Web services and communication between Flash and the browser Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #189325 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

About the Author
Peter is a certified Flash MX 2004 developer, Team Macromedia volunteer for Flash and runs his own business named MindStudio, which mainly does multimedia development and consultancy.

Sas is a Web developer who loves working with Flash. She set up her business Anything Is Possible in 1994, working in the areas of web development, IT training and technical writing. The business works with large and small clients building web applications with ASP.NET, Flash, XML and databases.

After studying theatre in London, then working for several years as an actor in the US, Todd was introduced to Flash in 2000 and was quickly taken by how it allowed for both stunning creativity and programmatic logic application--a truly left-brain, right brain approach to production--and has not looked back. He now freelances as a Flash developer in New York City, creating both silly animations and utilitarian applications.

Customer Reviews

Perhaps tires to please to wide an audience.
I've been waiting for this book to come out for quite some time and have been really looking forward to it. The book starts with a gentle introduction to OOP and the differences between AS1 and AS3. I found the first few chapters a slow read mostly because I've already learned how to use AS3 from Joey Lott's ActionScript 3 Cookbook.

I was an intermediate AS2 developer before getting this book. I'd never really touched on OOP so thought it was about time to start learning considering AS3 is a fully fledged OOP language. It teaches the principals of OOP rather well though the first set of examples were very simple (moving a ball around) they did however provide good examples of Polymorphism, Encapsulation and Inheritance. The book then moved onto interfaces and Design Patterns and even though the examples became more suited to real-world applications I felt that they weren't explained well enough.

I really did enjoy this book however it seems to want to appeal to both beginners and advanced actionscript developers and the jump in the middle is difficult to take in, I found myself using Adobe's livedocs to fill in some of the gaps. I would however recommend this book as I have learned a lot about OOP but I'd also recommend looking into Essential ActionScript 3 by Colin Mook (it really is essential) and even one dedicated to ActionScript 3 design patterns as the chapter for these were very short.

PHP-PT user group review

Object-Orientes ActionScript 3.0, offers a comprehensive introduction to the most important Object Oriented Programming techniques. Readers are not only exposed to the core aspects of these techniques, but also gain valuable insight into how they work and are used in a real world. It is a great book not only experience users but to beginners, as it explains the most important base concepts of OOP, like Encapsulation, Polymorphism, and Inheritance. It also leads the user to every basic steps of general programming explaining concepts like functions, arrays, variables, data types, and so on. For the experience user, it has practical code examples through out the entire book, showing in a glance the real application of the topics discussed.
This book uses a very comprehensive language that lets all kind of users to understand and follow every single step, including the most advanced ones.

This is the perfect book for the Web designer or programmer, that wants to learn how to create applications with Flash or Flex using ActionScript 3.0, and have some fun while learning.

It's OK, but could use some changes
I'm fairly new to developing AS3 in OOP environments, but have done a bunch of AS3 since CS3 was launched.

The book explains the general practices of OOP, project flow, UI diagrams etc. in a fairly good manner, and it covers them from an "real" programmer's perspective and not a Flash designer's which I like, and which taught me a lot of valuable lessons.

The examples are easy to follow and explained very well. However, they tend to write the starting code of an application inside the start-up .fla file, which to me is a bad and clumpsy way to start an application. For people used to AS3, this can be easily overcome, but for newcommers, it might leave them with a bad habbit.

I aggree to one of the other reviews that the book tries too please too many different levels of users, and I also think it tries to cover too many different ways of doing OOP and too many ways of writing the code. A more strict line of appraoch would have been beneficial.

But all in all, I got smarter from the parts of the book I went through, so I see the money as well spend.