Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64662 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 657 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780596516215
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Flex 3 book with it's own unique strengths
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.

Best Flex (and one of best overall) Programming books
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.

Well thought out and comprehensive
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.