Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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255 of 274 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The more I read it, the more I hate it., April 18, 2008
First, please note that many of the 5-star reviews are written by experienced Flash professionals, who already have actionscript expertise -- and that makes them poor judges of how clear this book will be to a beginning audience.
The book is explicitly written for beginners, but the authors often have a poor grasp on what readers know. On one page they start talking about "trapping" events. What does that mean? Who knows?
I have a good math background, so I was able to decipher the math chapter, but it contains explanations like, "A radian is the angle of a circle subtended by an arc along its circumference that is the length of the circle's radius (hence the name, radian)." What's the point of writing a sentence like that? Will it be understood by anyone who doesn't already know what a radian is? Has a math newbie even ever heard the word "subtend"? This casual use of undefined jargon happens in every chapter.
Also, sometimes they're just wrong. They say that a ball moving 4 pixels to the right and 4 pixels down per second will have a velocity of 4 pixels per second in a south southeast direction. No. The Pythagorean theorem (which they explain, badly, in the next section), says the ball will be moving more than 5.6 pixels per second. And the direction is southeast.
The book really is full of typos, and they're not all caught in the errata. The only way to know if the code is correct is to to go the website and download the code being discussed in the book. The files you download will have the correct code (though before you check the code, as you're reading the book you're thinking, "Do I not understand, or is this code wrong?") Unfortunately, the book sometimes refers to these files by the wrong name, so you have to figure out which file to open. That's really inexcusable -- how hard would it be for the authors to go to their own website and correctly name the files?
Another random, infuriating example of the book's sloppiness: on page 144, the authors state a line of code "g.curveTo(275, 0, 400, 100);". In the context of the chapter, the hardest part of this code to understand is the "275, 0" and it's the one part they don't bother to explain!
And as long as I'm ranting (I just threw the book down to come and write this), the authors often put unnecessary lines into the code. I'm left trying to figure it out, wondering, "Why did they put that there? Is it necessary?" so I try the code without the extra material, and it still works fine. But the authors never explain why it's there, so while you're trying to learn to read actionscript, wanting to understand the importance of each line and its relationship to the rest of the example, you're thinking, "Am I just missing the importance of this line? Or does it have no importance?" Learners shouldn't be left to wonder those things!
It's a maddening book, full of unexplained terminology (I just found the phrase, "dedicated canvas"; huh?), incomplete explanations, bloated code, and many, many errors.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Starting Point for Migrating to ActionScript 3, August 3, 2008
I first became interested Learning ActionScript 3 after initially reading a few samples posted on Adobe's website. What I found was an excellent starting point that drove me to finally make the jump from ActionScript 1 and 2. In practice, most books I have read about ActionScript 3 focus on the Flex platform, which is outside of what I'm looking for. Rather, I needed something that focused on developing in the Flash IDE (Flash CS3 as of this review), which is exactly what this book is written for.
I picked it up as supplement material to aid me in programming a large game programming project. Basically, I've referenced this book to understand the key concepts needed for my game, borrowing code samples where needed and applying them to my own project. In practice, it's the application here that really teaches the concept, and I've found that this book is a great starting point as well as reference for grasping these concepts.
The authors have done a great job presenting the material in an easily-readable casual conversation style. Of these discussions, I particularly found their comparisons to the previous versions of the language most satisfying. As AS3 is very different from AS1/2, I appreciate learning what was changed and why.
I can not vouch for the beginner's guide level for this book. I came into this book as an intermediate ActionScript programmer and often found myself skimming over any discussion on the details of some of the programs. For the most part, the code is easy enough to read and get the point, and if I had questions, these were almost always addressed in the discussion. That said, I think this book is ideal for any intermediate programmer looking to make the jump to AS3.
I am aware that there are some errata in this book, and to that extent, I can simply comment that the website is well maintained, code samples there seem accurate. No problems here.
All in all, I would highly recommend Learning ActionScript 3 as a great companion book for anyone looking to get started programming with ActionScript 3.
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally!, February 4, 2008
Finally a book on ActionScript that is clear, crisply written and easy to follow. This is the book I've been looking for and couldn't find. I finally get it! I've never felt compelled to write a review before, but felt I should take the time after purchasing this book.
I'm a designer who has been trying to learn ActionScript for quite a while. I have a stack of books, but this one is just so much better than anything I've come across. I've often wondered why it has to be so hard. These guys know to write and how to teach. It's all very clear.
One of the things I really appreciate about the book is that it is in color. That in itself makes it so much easier to get into and understand. As a visual person it makes a huge difference.
The subtitle is "A Beginners Guide" but it is by no means a simple introduction. It is very thorough and covers most of the concepts you will likely ever use. The examples are all very useful and the example code is available for download from their equally well designed website, which also includes additional examples not in the book.
They really do an incredible job of showing how everything works together and they do it with economy. No unnecessary words and nothing necessary forgotten.
It even make the trigonometry seem easy. Amazing. Not an easy task.
If you're a designer or new to ActionScript 3.0, I think this is the best there is. If you combine this with the Actionscript Cookbook, and Moock's Essential Actionscript for reference (after you have completed reading and understanding "Learning Actionscript 3.0") I think you'll have everything you need to solve any ActionScript problem.
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