The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essentials) [Paperback]

Charles Brown (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590599500 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599501 | Publication Date: June 2, 2008 | Edition: 1

Flex 3 is the new version of Adobe's revolutionary rich internet application development environment, and this book covers all the basic and advanced topics needed to master Flex 3. Whatever level the reader in Flex 2/3 development, they will gain a great deal from this book - it covers everything from installation and environment basics thru language essentials, to advanced topics such as charting components and connecting to server-side environments such as ColdFusion and .NET.

Rather than being a mere beginner's book or reference guide, this book provides a very thorough learning guide, including all the new features that come with Flex 3.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charles E. Brown is one of the most noted author, consultant, and trainers in the industry today. His books about Dreamweaver and Fireworks have received critical acclaim and used worldwide as teaching tools.

 

In addition to his work in the IT industry, Charles is also a noted concert pianist, organist, and guitarist appearing in major concert centers world-wide. He began his musical studies at age 4 and went on to study with famed pianist Vladimir Horowitz. At age 14 he made his debut with Leonard Bernstein and went on to study at the famed Juilliard School. Eventually he went to Paris to study with the 20th century legend, Igor Stravinsky. While working with Stravinsky, Charles developed a close friendship with one of the most powerful artistic forces of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso. What he learned about creativity from Picasso he uses today in his writings and training work.

 

Charles is a certified Macromedia/Adobe trainer who is in heavy demand worldwide. He frequently speaks at major conferences such as MAX and NAB. You can see his blog at blog.charlesebrown.net and his website can be found at www.charlesebrown.net.

About the friends of Ed Essential Guide Series

Series description to come.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599500
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599501
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,022,251 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am an author with several books available about internet design and programming. My books are:

Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004
Fireworks MX 2004 - Zero to Hero

I was also a contributor to The Marcromedia Studio MX Bible.

In addition, I am a classical pianist, guitarist, and organist.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book overall (my exact rating is 3.75 stars), July 22, 2008

By 

Brian Yager "jazzman310" (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essentials) (Paperback)

If you don't know Flex 3 and want to learn the basics and then some, well then this book might just be for you. The author takes you through Installing Eclipse and Flex Builder 3 (FB3) which I found very informing. He then takes you through some of the different areas in FB3. The chapter on ActionScript (Chapter 3) is not a very good one. You will need a different book for ActionScript reference. You then go through some of the "essentials" of Flex 3 to understand how to build an application.

I was a bit confused at times but it might have been because of the speed I was going through this book. If I would have slowed down a bit, I think it would have been a lot clearer. Also, I am new to Flex so it was learning from scratch for me.

This book does not come with the files, nor can you download them. I really think if it had the files it would have been a MUCH better read/work along. There are a few errors in the code and you have to guess at times as to what it should be. I could not get one section to work at all (as was shown in the book).

If you want to learn Flex 3 or get a better understanding of Flex 3, then I would tell you to read this book. The information you will learn far outweighs the few errors and lack of files. I've always said the best way to learn code, is to sit down and type it out. You will be doing a lot of this. Good job Charles!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely perfect (almost), October 6, 2008

By 

Carl E. Olsen (Ankeny, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essentials) (Paperback)

This is one of the most well-written books I have ever read. I have been programming JavaScript for several years, so I assume that makes learning ActionScript fairly easy for me. Nevertheless, this is a good introductory book to Flex 3. All of the examples work flawlessly. The only thing wrong with the book are some unbelievably huge typographical errors, but they are easy to spot and easy to decipher. Sometimes you have to look at the example code from the website to get the correct text. The errors have not caused me any problems and I would highly recommend this book to anyone new to Flex 3.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Way to Start Learning Flex 3, June 29, 2009

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essentials) (Paperback)

I am a desktop programmer entering the Web application developmnet world.

This book is a very good point to start, explaining how do learn Flex without attending a course.

Brown introduce de use of Flex step by step very clearly.

I have bought other good books I recommend reading in the following sequence :

Guide to Flex 3 (Charles Brown)
Adobe Flex for Dummies (Douge MCune)
Adobe Flex 3 Bible David Gassner