Customer Reviews

Programming Flex 3: The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex

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

 

 

This book has many things to commend it, and in particular it is very strong on:
* The internal startup sequence of a Flex application
* Loading one Flex application into another Flex application
* Working with fonts
* Programmatic skinning
* Runtime CSS
* Building custom components

I think the book is weak on a few things as well, such as the Flex Builder IDE and remoting. In reference to remoting, the authors make the following surprising statement on page 471:
"Several of the remoting gateway products have added support for a Flex data component called RemoteObject. However, because we have found no practical use for RemoteObject, we are omitting any discussion of RemoteObject".
Well, I must report that I have found a practical use for it: namely, it's one of the central objects in Blaze DS and LCDS remoting. If you want to learn how to use it, you'll have to read Flex 3 Bible (12 pages on it), Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex & Java (referenced on 41 pages), or Adobe's help contents.

I believe these authors have a slight tendency to favor ActionScript and Flash APIs over MXML and Flex APIs, a preference that a reader can either choose to follow or not. I don't believe this book would be as good for novice Flex users as some of the others I have read. I think that when authors delve into relatively arcane, advanced features of an API before they get to the common simple things, it tends to make it harder for beginners. For example, here within the first 100 pages of a 600 page book they cover class introspection, loading one Flex application into another, application domains, and resource bundles... all before the novice reader has even been introduced to a simple CheckBox control. The order in which they cover topics is pretty much preserved from "Programming Flex 2", except for the fact that the chapter on application components has been moved forward quite a bit.

Just finished reading all 600+ pages. I have four other Flex books I've read/perused. This book is by far the best flex book WTR understanding and applying its architecture. Combine it with the "Flex 3 Bible" by Gassner and I think that's all you should need. Most programming books give you a a lot more hows, and a lot less whys. This book is all about why, not simple hows. Knowing why to do something will, long term, be of great benefit.

Also the writing in this books is exemplary. Very clear, not too wordy, not too concise, and very good use of illustrative examples. Really, really excellent. Few programming books of this length can I read and understand over the course of a day or two. Usually such books require a read thru, then re-reference. But because of the excellence of the writing, I did not find this the case here. Literally sat and read it front to back over the course of three days.

Looking at the other reviews, it appears some others have complained about examples, or thoroughness of a feature description. Again, this is a book about why you make programming decisions, not how to write the code -- get the Bible for this. IMHO, it does a pretty good job with the examples, but it is not the intent of the book. Finally, the authors end the book with a discussion of a full app they wrote accessing Flickr. The entire source code is available for download, and provides a very in-depth "example". Strongly suggest readers DL and read thru the code references the explanations the authors provide in the book.

I have read a lot of books about programming, and this is one of the best. Going back to some of my other Flex books, they seem simplistic now.

Finally, I've taken note of the two companies for which the authors work (from the book's jacket). If they contribute to these as well to these as they did the book, then might be a good investment -- notably Kazoun who is a co-founder and tech architect. Unusual investment strategy, but that's the high regard I hold for these two authors.

It is clear the authors of Programming Flex 3 worked very hard to write a comprehensive, easy-to-read publication. Their examples are great - very simple such that they highlight the concepts being presented. I have been working with Flex for a couple years but reading this book definitely brought my game up a notch based on a more clear understanding of the Flex framework, authoring components, and several other key principles.

If I had to offer one critique, I'd have liked to see some more coverage of synchronous network communication with Flex (sockets, Flash Media Server, etc.), but the dedicated chapter on AIR more than makes up for this.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, but have already noticed some things.

The book's content is great. Its very thorough and covers a lot of useful material.

Unfortunately, the authors miss the mark on correlating their examples to their figures. Most of the code examples have no figure to show what the code renders. And most of the figures that are there, don't correlate to the code examples.

This is great book for getting started with flex 3(which I am new to). It starts out in the first few chapters with the basic information on what flex is, how to build a flex application, explains controls, events, etc.
The following chapters contain more advanced information with coding samples & tricks.
I have no complaints about the book I think it is well worth your time if your going to be working with flex and there is enough in this book to allow you to extend and expand upon it well beyond what is just presented.

this is great book for getting started with flex 3. it starts out with the basic stuff, how to build a flex application, explains controls, events, etc. works into more advanced stuff with coding samples & tricks. highly recommended.

Information provided is very helpfull to have solid understanding of inner workings of Flex. Great content within least amount of pages. Must have reference.

I just got my copy of Programming Flex 3 in the mail yesterday and have already found it to be extremely useful! Like most titles in O'Reilly's "Adobe Developer Library" series, the book is very well organized and contains useful and understandable examples. One thing that Joey and Chafic have done very well is to keep the chapters focused, not bloating them with unnecessary technical jargon that may confuse readers who are new to Flex. This is not to say that this book is by any means only for beginners, as it dives into many advanced topics, it just does it in such a way that it will be easily understood by reader of any skill level.

As the title suggests, I believe that this book will be a valuable asset to any flex developer, and it has found a permanent home on my desk next to my copies of The Flex 3 Cookbook (Flex 3 Cookbook: Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers (Adobe Developer Library)), The Actionscript 3 Cookbook (ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers), and Essential Actionscript 3 (Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential) (Essential)). If you are looking to learn Flex from the ground up, or would simply like a very good reference manual covering all of the topics that you will most likely encounter on a day to day basis, then I would highly recommend this book!

My company have bought several copies of this book for various employees. We use Java and Flex and looking for integration. The only optimized way to do this is with Remote Objects.

As the previous review mentioned, On page 471, on the bottom, there is a square with bear tracks on it. Look at that section ...

"Several of the Remoting gateway products have added support for a Flex data component called RemoteObject. However, because we have found no practical use for RemoteObject, we are omitting any discussion of RemoteObject in this chapter."

Word for word.

In other words, the author did not do his job. RemoteObjects are heavily used throughout the world and this guy can not think of a reason? Google is your friend.

While this book is great on the Flex only side, the author have failed miserably on Remoting.

This is definately a 0 (no effort provided) star review, but unfortunately, Amazon limits the minimum to 1 star ...