MARGOT SHEEHAN said
I was browsing at Borders at Park Ave and 57th, where they had exactly one copy of this. I'd heard of this book but hadn't seen it yet--it was announced over the summer but O'Reilly kept delaying publication so the book could be current with Flash CS4. I looked up a few items in the ToC and index, and went straight to the checkout queue. I had to have this book right away! even if Amazon could sell it to me cheaper!
Okay, why is the book good? I've spent more time with it now. I'll give you my three biggest reasons:
1) It's readable. It really is. It's friendly and accessible. Did you ever enjoy those juvenile histories and biographies and How-and-Why science books that started out with something like, "Hi! This is a fun book, and we're going to take you on a fun journey, step-by-step. This is a great subject to be interested in! Aren't you happy? Well, we are!!!"?
Well, did you like books like that? I did, and I've always resented scholarly and technical books that didn't introduce themselves along those lines. So many of them are written like resentful documentation: "Go away. We hate you. This is only for ugly, squirrelly, socially backward people like US."
This book is overtly addressed to users of ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0, and those already using 3.0; to artists, designers, and developers of all stripes. It's all-inclusive. Like Rich Shupe's Learning ActionScript 3.0, it has a friendly, hand-holding attitude that goes through the length of the book.
2) A personal obsession: this book has a good section on how to write XML loaders that use HTML. This is a very poorly documented area of Flash. The ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook had a little bit on it, but the explanation was hard to follow and the code was buggy.
3) Another personal interest: SWF loaders and unloaders. This is the first book I've seen that tells you how to unload both the thing loaded and the "event listener" that keeps sitting there, using up processor time and space.
The book is also current with the less traditional Flash-related technologies, such as FlashDevelop and Flex.
Paul Elwood said
Rich Shupe & crew have made a terrific guide for transitioning from AS2 to AS3. Their examples are clearly written, typically showing code written in both versions and pointing out the advantages of AS3 by comparison. Speaking as someone who uses flash as a designer primarily, his book as gone a great way towards making AS3 a lot less intimidating. Great job, highly recommend it.
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