Customer Reviews

Getting Started with Flex 3: An Adobe Developer Library Pocket Guide for Developers (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly))

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I'm sure most of you have had the experience of having a smart friend try to teach you how to do something only to wind up feeling frustrated, stupid or both. This was my experience with this book. Often an expert too easily forgets what it's like to be an absolute beginner and either moves too quickly or leaves out important steps. I admit I wasn't expecting a thorough exploration of Flex in this tiny guide. This was my first 'pocket guide', so perhaps I'm being unfair or expecting too much. But I felt the author just leapt from one thing to the next without offering enough in the way of explanation or context. What the book IS good for, in my opinion, is giving you some idea of the things Flex can do. But you can get a very good idea of what Flex can do at Adobe's website- for free. To anyone new to Flex, I would suggest finding a free way of checking out what Flex can do. Then, if you're interested, go and find a different book to really get a proper start.

Flex is short for flexible, a title the program Flex 3 rightfully deserves. "Getting Started with Flex 3: An Adobe Developer Library Pocket Guide" is a handbook filled with all one needs to gain a complete understanding and mastery of Flex 3. Covering user interfaces, controls both commercial and open source, integration, and so much more that this little program can do. "Getting Started With Flex 3" is a must for anyone dealing with the program and wants to do more.

I am new to Adobe Flex development, but I have been a Microsoft web programmer for many years. I really enjoyed this book; it's an excellent intro to the world of Flex development. I love the length of the chapters they are just long enough to finish in a quick 20 min break during the day. The authors do an excellent job demonstrating what can be done with the technology. The examples are simple but well thought out and well written. They start off by showing the reader real world applications already in place on the web. In the following chapters he provides examples that introduce some of the controls available in Flex. The examples are labels, buttons, checkboxes and datagrids just to highlight a few. One chapter walks the reader through creating a Runner's Calculator. The last chapter contains a nice list of websites, blogs and community resources to get you into the developer community.

If you are new to Flex this is an excellent book to start with it's both informative and a quick read.