Customer Reviews

Certified Macromedia Flash MX Developer Study Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book was a good review of the basics and definitely one you should pick up if you need a quick review. That is, of course, what it was intended to be.

It doesn't have a lot of high-end coverage, however, so if you're looking for that type of review, this book isn't the absolute best source.

In any case, it's worth it!

.
@mike: This book is on shelves, I read it for a couple of weeks !!

Like cover says, it's a good collection of what has to be known to pass dev certification. Of course, first quarter is childish for a programmer but is well written and crystal-clear for a novice. But quickly we realize that there's a lot to know and to know well.
Do not mistake in considering questions on this book as like-certification questions. It just remind you the chapter content.That's all !

A very good invest as a handy summary; but no miracle; beginners won't go far with it only (you won't be able to avoid Moock's and Hall's references and...practice of course ;-)

I recently took my Developer test and failed. :( I have been designing and programming in Flash for close to 2 years now, and while I found this book to be a great source for overall A.S. training, it really didn't prep me for the exam. There was very little in the book that actually reflected the level or detail the exam demanded. Understanding Macromedia has since changed the exam after this book was published, I still wish there was a way the publishers of this book could offer provide its owners some materials on the updated exam and its new expectations.

I'm one of the co-authors of this book. I would like to address the discrepancies some reviewers have noted between the book and the exam.

We were contracted to write this book and were given a general structure of what topics needed to be covered, and to what extent. This structure was intended to match that of the exam. We followed these guidelines as closely as possible and wrote the best book we could based on the many criteria we were given.

From what I can tell, at some point after the book went to press Macromedia changed the structure of the exam. Subjects that had only comprised a small amount of the text were now major portions of the exam and vice versa. There was nothing we could do but hope that the well-rounded approach we chose for teaching AS would still cover the exam material well as well as help potential test takers identify areas of weakness in their experience.

As has been pointed out in other reviews, the book provides good overall coverage of ActionScripting complete with solid code examples. I still believe it would be a handy resource for someone considering taking the exam, although it can no longer be considered a complete reference.

Although I did learn some new terminology and have a more thorough understanding of ActionScript (1.0), this book did not adequately prepare me for the Certification exam. I do recommend that someone buy this book, in addition to some ActionScripting "How To" book that gets you submerged in programming AS and using the debugger tool A LOT MORE!

First of all, this book was created because Macromedia Flash certification is getting more respect and the desire to obtain certification is growing. Because of the lack of example exams and general knowledge on what to expect people are hungry for a good study guide.

This is not a good study guide. It covers the easy topics with great detail. It talks about things that don't show up on the exam (i.e. good coding style). It skips over more difficult topics and suggests that the reader find a good reference.

I recommend that you read Colin Moock's reference, then if you want a good study guide download the test outline from Macromedia and buy the condensed pocket reference to Mr. Moock's book.

Study, and practice and you're sure to pass. Just don't expect much from this book.

Buyer beware: this book is a good overview of the topics you need to know. But your time would be well spent with Colin Moock's book as well. In addition the practice test on the books related web site is nowhere near as difficult as the real thing.

There are some very good code samples in this book that will benefit even the most seasoned Flash MX developer. They are woth the purchase alone.

The criteria I used to rate this book is how it relates to the actual exam and how helpful it was in preparing for the exam since that is really its sole purpose. If you are looking for a book on how to use Flash or to become better acquainted with the application then you would do better to just read the help files that come with Flash or buy a book that goes into more of the "how to" than this guide.

Overall it was a very high level review of Flash MX and only went into some detail on some particular areas. This is not necessarily bad since a good review should be high level to some degree so as to not cover material that is unnecessary however the review should be focused on areas the test actually addresses. This book does a very poor job in that area. In addition the sample questions are nothing like what you will encounter in the test. While reading through the guide and doing the sample questions I remember thinking to myself that the test surely could not be this simple or it would make the certification really worthless.

I have worked with Flash and many other programming languages such as JAVA and C++ for many years and only purchased this book to use as a guide to know what to brush up on. I did very well on the test but no thanks to this study guide. I would have given this book no stars at all but in the back there is a coupon that gives you 15% of the certification test fee which comes out to be almost the price of the book. So basically it is difficult to give a book that is almost free a complete failing grade.

Relates to the exam? = 1
How helpful in preparation for the exam? = 0
Price = 1

This is a valuable book for all. The the review of sections I am familiar with it was well written and distilled the concepts and key points to just what I needed. I give it a rave review because it helped me to finally get concepts that was previously struggling with. It is not an encyclopedic reference nor does it pretend to be. It covers just what I needed without distractions or extraneous fluff.

Well worth every page!

I am a macromedia developer of 4 years as well as a Java developer of 2 years. I read the book cover to cover and went back to through it again before taking the Macromedia Certified Developer Test. I also went through all of the questions in the book and scored myself, making a 92% the first time and a 100% on the second 2 days later.

I went and took the exam to find that the book covered around 15 - 20% of what was actually on the test. While the book does a good job at providing an overview of Flash MX it is hardly a study guide...only a few concepts helped me with the test.