Customer Reviews

Flex 3 Cookbook: Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers (Adobe Developer Library)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got off to a rocky start with the Flex 3 Cookbook. Many of the recipes would be well suited for someone who is just beginning to develop in Flex. If you're a beginner, that's a good thing; if you're a more advanced user (one who has progressed beyond using states and doing your layouts in the designer) it might be a bit of a turn off.

Fortunately there are enough advanced recipes scattered throughout the book (in greater and greater density as you move to later chapters) to keep your interest. Chapters 17, 18 and 19 were my favorites (Browser Communication; Modules and RSL; and AIR, respectively).

My only real criticism of the book is that it bears many of the signs of being rushed to market (i.e. typos, unpolished code). I expect that on a blog, but find it detracting in a book.

There are a handful of recipes I'm surprised made it past the editors, '4.3 Create a Suggestive TextInput' being the worst. Not only is the output terrible, but there's a variable in the code that was undoubtedly part of a previous draft of the recipe, but is not used in the recipe printed in the book. Any developer can appreciate the need to get to market quickly, unfortunately it's not as easy to change a printed volume as it is to change source code.

I would have been happier, and probably given the book 5 stars, if the title had been pushed back another month and greater attention paid to details like these. Overall, I got enough information from the book to make it worth every star I gave it and every dollar I paid for it.

In my progression as a budding Flex developer I have reached the point where I'm passed the "getting started" tutorials but still not a master of anything with the language. My questions have from general concepts to the much more specific. This book is perfectly tailored to provide the answers I needed.

The format of the publication is set up nicely as it states a problem and then explains a solution. The way I usually judge a book's worth is to attack it with a specific question in mind, and then see how well it helps me solve the problem. The Flex 3 Cookbook passed with flying colors.

I needed some help wrapping my mind around manipulating data in an ArrayCollection. Section 13.1 called 'Add, Sort, and Retrieve Data from an ArrayCollection' guided me to a much better understanding of ArrayCollections. My question was answered, although there was a typo in the example code, hence the 4-star rating rather than 5.

The Flex 3 Cookbook is an amazing resource, and it should be found in the library of any Flex developer. Its solution based training provides motivation for completing projects while filling in potential gaps of knowledge. Not the definitive book, but an excellent resource.

"Flex 3 Cookbook" provides recipes to over 300 most common dishes. It wasn't authors' intention to lead an introductory course to Flex and ActionScript and so, the book does not contain information on language constructs, syntax and principles.

Content is divided into clearly themed chapters, each of which contains related recipes. Each recipe is made up of 3 parts: Problem, Solution and Discussion. The first part serves as an introduction and description of the problem, Solution gives a concise walk-through and Discussion explains the decisions made in the Solution part. Each problem is well illustrated with adequate ActionScript and MXML code samples.

The book covers a broad range of topics, starting with a trivial "How do I react upon a button being clicked", the list is full of many useful solutions. In my opinion it is a good choice especially for beginners and intermediate Flex adepts. Thanks to the wide spectrum of topics, they will benefit the most. It can also serve as a reference used when an answer to a specific problem is sought - well made chapter division makes searching straightforward.

The book is written with clear and concise language.

Reviewed by Andrzej Grzesik

I haven't read all of this book, but from what I've seen, it is pretty good info. The format is good, listing a problem, a solution, and a discussion. I've read some good and not so great Flex books and I have noticed books with Todd Anderson as the author have been good(see Adobe Air, create modify reuse).

-I did not read Flex 2 Cookbook - the information looks new to me!
-There will be some errors in any book, especially programming books. With the Flex technology changing so fast, I would rather see a book rushed to market than months spent trying to cleanup every typo and minor compile errors(as other reviewers have said). We can figure out what typos and minor compile errors are supposed to be.

I have approx 6 flex books and this one is at the top of my list right now.

This book does not provide much more informations than basic google search on topics it covers. Kindle edition is less readable and definitely not worth the price.

Good book for examples. I would recommend for who wants to learn more about Flex 3

I just got this book and am using it already in my projects. Great source of real life solutions, very enjoyable to read. Highly recommended!

This is a fantastic book. It's filled with well thought out and well written solutions to problems that real world Flex developers actually face. It's a fine update to the original Flex 2 book and works on it's strengths. The material on States, which are very important, is excellent and much appreciated.

The writing is tight. The example code is good. The recipes are relevant. You can't ask for more than that.

A must buy for Flex developers.

I would have given this book 5 stars after 2 days of reading except that they should have waited to include at least 3 of the 4 missing chapters. Printing the .pdf's isn't too professional. I would have waited another week or two to include these in the text.