I remember reading the documentation for Flash MX back around 2003-2004. It had this big section about object-oriented programming and why it's so great. The idea of reusing snippets of code by arranging them as modular classes was easy to understand and get on board with, but it never stuck with me when it came time to build an app. That was partly because I had just barely gotten into scripting at that point, but it was also because you can't truly explain the practical benefits of of OOP in just a few pages.
This book makes OOP tangible. It is a long book, and it goes into exhaustive detail. When you finish reading the first half of it, you will have seen numerous examples of OOP in action, and you will have practical knowledge of when OOP can work for you and how to go about implementing it in basic ways. When I started reading the book, I had never bothered arranging my code into classes. After I read it, I couldn't wait to jump onto my computer and start building a few classes for future use. Each chapter started off kind of scary as I delved into new, unfamiliar subject matter, but by the end of each chapter I felt like a bulb had lit up inside my head and I was beginning to realize I had powers as a programmer that I never knew I possessed. It also shed a lot of light on terminology that I had heard thrown around before but that I never understood the significance of. I'll admit -- reading a couple hundred pages about programming can be a chore. I took lots of naps along the way. But when I started this book I was just a guy who could write scripts, and when I finished I was on my way to learning some serious programming.
You might wonder why the book is called "Essential Actionscript 3.0" if it is all about OOP. Well, in many ways the two topics are one and the same. I believe most potential readers are like myself. We have a background in Flash and maybe even Actionscript, but we are not full-time programmers by trade. In order to make the transition from Actionscript 2 to Actionscript 3, the main thing we have to learn is Object Oriented Programming. AS3 embraces OOP concepts much more closely than AS2, and if you start to understand OOP, you start to understand why AS changed the way it did in moving from version 2 to version 3. Even those who think that AS3 code looks unnecessarily cumbersome at first glance might come around and realize that its long-term benefits outweigh the cost of the learning curve once you start building truly object-oriented apps that run super fast.
People with a background in computer science might get a little less out of the book, as you should already be familiar with OOP. You could still learn a lot about what AS3 supports in comparison to other OOP languages, but the majority of that can be gleaned from any documentation of ECMA guidelines, as Adobe is adhering as closely as they can to those guidelines. There is a lot of documentation out there about AS3's built-in classes, and Adobe maintains a pretty excellent language resource on its website.
But again, for people who are Flash developers first, and programmers second, this book is an excellent way to go from AS2 to AS3. And if you find yourself drawn to AS3 programming and want to learn even more, check out "ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns" by the same publisher. That book will take you from knowing how to build OOP apps in AS3 to structuring your applications in ways that professional programmers have considered standard for several decades.
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Top reviews from other countries
GM Montreal
A Detailed Look At ActionScript 3.0
Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2010Mr. D. J. Hinton
This should ship with Flash..
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2008
