Customer Reviews

Server-Side Flash: Scripts, Databases and Dynamic Development

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book not knowing what to expect, the description promised quite a bit of know-how was contained within. Pleased to say it was well worth it. Prior to getting this book, I'd gotten good with ActionScript and JavaScript but to hook Flash up with any back-end scripting for my clients I've always been calling other people to consult and half the time had to just go with HTML instead. I always had a fear of any of those 3-letter languages (CGI/ASP/PHP) since the few books I'd gotten on them were way to heavy on programming theory and usually lacking on real world examples, and definitely never had an example of how to connect those things to Flash! There's a good sampling of how to connect Flash to everything here, and working through the examples let me finally understand many concepts that previously had been just out of my grasp. You won't become a master database programmer, but so what, this is a Flash integration book, and if I was doing nothing but databases all day I'd be bored out of my mind. Flash is about mixing great visuals with programming and Server Side Flash has filled in a lot of the missing pieces in my Flash and programming knowledge-base.

Most books have very little about using the backend with Flash, but this book brings it all home. I've read several other books on Flash, and while some have some material on using Flash with servers and server side elements, none of them go into the depth and breadth as this one. First, it gives client-side users an excellent introduction to the server side, and it does so in a clear and practical manner. Second, it provides good introductions to several different server-side languages (CGI/Perl, PHP and ASP) and how they work with Flash. It is clearly an introduction to server-side languages and does a good job doing that with lots of examples that work.

I suppose you could go buy a half dozen other books on server-side languages and a book on ActionScript, but I don't see the point. The book is not an introduction to ActionScript and Flash. It simply shows how to use Flash and ActionScript to set up and use server-side languages, and as far as I'm concerned it does a better job than those books written by committees or re-writes of the Macromedia AcitonScript manual. So, if you want to get a great introduction to and experience using Flash with backends, this book is the place to start. It also has the best explanation of how to use XML with Flash I've seen along with in-depth discussions of other little-known facets of Flash. It also comes with free hosting service for learning this stuff.

This is an excellent book to get your feet wet with server side scripting for Macromedia's Flash. It's very easy to read, straight ahead. They don't assume you're an expert, so on that level, I suppose it's a great introductory book. The examples are practical. They do something that I particularly like in tutorial type books. They keep it simple, let you get the basic idea of what's going on and then you can take it from there.

Many of the tutorials I've read on Flashkit or We're Here Forums (many of them excellent) assume that you know too much or worse, seem to want to flaunt their expertise with a very disingenuous attempt at helping the "student". Anyway, it appears that way when there are so many steps in a lesson that you lose track of what your basic goal is.

Server Side Flash gives you a great introduction to Perl Script, ASP, XML and PHP MySQL so that you can decide for yourself which flavor you wish to delve into deeper.

If I have any complaints at all, it would be that there's not an official website for the book. Not that I know of anyway. I went to flashcore.com, where one of the authors either writes or "used to" write, but there's not a mention of the book anywhere.

Other than that, it really is a great book that will teach you the how to of server side flash and do it in a way that's easy to retain.

I don't think there's anyone out there who will read this book and not come away having learned SOMETHING they didn't know about integrating Flash with the server scripting languages, and doing all the things you hear that you can do with Flash but no one ever tells you specifically how. There's plenty of reusable code for setting cookies and sending emails and storing Flash data in a database for creating dynamic Flash movies. This book definitely isn't meant to teach Actionscript or Flash basics, which is good since it seems there's about 1,000 of those books that came out this year. At least here there's an opportunity here to learn something NEW and unique about pushing the limits of what is possible with Flash, with serious working examples.

Since the book does a good job of replacing about 5 other books you might need to buy, it's not a 'page-turner' where you can jump right in at any point. The information is dense but clearly presented so I had to make an effort to read and try all the examples and not just skim pages like in other books where there's way too many pictures and not enough solid information. Definitely not the case here. I found a lot of tips and tricks throughout as well about Flash and troubleshooting issues that are clearly the product of real world experience on the part of the authors.

I'd rate it a "must-have" for any serious Flash developer's library, especially if you do work for a variety of clients that seem to all be running different hosting setups or have a preference for different languages ala PHP/ASP/Perl, and need to use Flash for more than just animation.

Ok, "server-side Flash" is sort of misleading: Flash doesn't actually run on the server in the way that "server-side Java" does, for example.

This is basically the same idea as "Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio" by Friends of Ed. This book is a bit drier and emphasizes code over everything else, which is as it should be. You won't find the pointless filler that pumps "Dynamic Content Studio" to 1000+ pages, but you won't be paying for it in money or weight, either. Of the two, this should be your choice if only because it doesn't suffer from the "too many cooks" syndrome of the Friends of Ed series. You don't need to figure out 8 peoples' coding style here like you do in "Dynamic Content Studio."

True, this is not a complete book about middleware technologies, and I wouldn't want to dive into a serious ecommerce project with nothing more than this book, but it's a solid introduction to a wide range of technologies.

This isn't a criticism of the book, but pay attention that it's from 2001 and covers Flash 5, NOT the latest Flash MX and its available Flash Remoting technology which offers far easier server-side integration.

Still, the info in the book still has value today to those who have not yet bought Flash MX. Indeed, even if you have Flash Mx, if your server is Perl, PHP, CF5, etc, then the approaches here will work since the new Flash Remoting only works on CFMX, ASP.NET, and select J2EE platforms.

Then again, MX users who do get the book should check out the newer LoadVars object as an alternative to the older but still supported LoadVariables. The approach to processing XML is also vastly improved in MX.

Of course, the book can't be faulted for having come out prior to MX. It's just that since the title doesn't say Flash 5, if you buy the book thinking it's about the latest and greatest ways of doing Flash/server integration, you'd likely be disappointed. Just offering this as a caution.

A massive treasure trove of information that has just saved me countless hours of messing around with Flash. I've read through the first 5 chapters and went through the included examples and that alone has been enough to make me feel comfortable selling backend integration to my clients now, and being able to deliver a Flash site that does more than just look and sound good. There's no ColdFusion here but at five grand for Cold Fusion Sevrver, I'll take the PHP/SQL,ASP,and Perl solutions detailed in this book any day of the week over a book trying to sell me on CF.

I've got Flash MX too and the data transfer and handling model is still the same - you've got to know how Flash, the server, and the browser all integrate in the process, and this book puts all that knowledge well in hand. Thank you Sanders and Winstaley.

When I found this book, it was like discovering the missing link for my programming library. Thie book is not for web-design beginners, Flash newbies, or non-scripters. It has some paint-by-the numbers introductions to each technology, but the book's true value is the clear explanations of how to pass information from Flash to middleware and back. If you already know ActionScript ans some ASP/PHP, then grab this book and you can say goodbye to hours annoying guesswork in your coding.
It blows away the Freinds of Ed books in it's precision. You just get info, not some designer's cutesy stab at technical writing.
Top notch.

I had very basic knowledge of actionscript and I've only designed some basic pages with Flash before I purchased this book. I was afraid that this book would be hard to understand since I'm not a programmer at all, but it isn't. I'm only at the beginning but I'm really enjoying it so far. Things that I couldn't understand by reading the Flash reference I could totally understand now. The tutorials are great too!

This book is awesome; it explains how to use Flash integration with the most common used server-side programming languages (PHP, ASP and Perl)...

All separated by parts, and it explains some of the functions and methods of the programming languages, just for letting the reader who doesn't deal with certain server-side languages more confortable to understand it.

Really good book, it solved all my problems with database and server integration with Flash.