Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential) (Essential)

I really liked Mr.Moock's book, as it goes from the fundamentals to crystal clear object oriented programming. As an AS2 programmer I filled gaps to make a succesfull switch to ActionScript3.0, and got a good grip in Flex also. Recommended!

I don't really like this book. Its way too descriptive and the result is that the subject matter is made to seem over-complicated. If you have some familiarity with OOP programming, you'll have to sort through lots of reading to get a few needed bits of information. If you're new to programming, the first 137 pages have no working code and so you'll have to understand deep and detailed programming basics without putting any theory into practice or having any working experience with the content. 'Not what I would want if I were a beginner.

I'm a huge fan of O'Reilly books, but this book should be avoided.

Good book as a code reference but in my opinion we need more real exercises for a better understand.

This book is brilliant. It's encyclopedic. It is a must-have to better understand AS 3 and to hopefully lower your frustration when coding. I am a designer fairly new to AS 3 and found this book gave clear, detailed explanations on every aspect of AS 3. Like an encyclopedia, each chapter breaks down specific core concepts, from Arrays and XML, into their basics. Information is laid out well and can be found quickly simply by looking at the book's table of contents. As a reference book, it fills in the "why" that other books on Flash or on-line tutorials don't have time or space to cover in easy to understand detail. Colin Moock avoids confusing jargon and de-mystifies ActionScipt.

I learned a good bit from this book; however I came into this with over 6 years for programming experience.

Part 1:

I found that this moved to slow for me. Much of it I already knew. So from an experienced perspective it was it was way to much info.

From a "I never programmed" it could be a good reference, but ultimately it would leave such a person with a shallow understanding of what is going on. I think he should have broke this book down into pieces. A good beginner would have been the first part of this book with some expansion on callback and closure theory combined with another book; Object Oriented ActionScript 3.0.

Part II:

The second part of the book was decent but had quite a few errors. For example in Screen Updates; his code for an optimized ellipse. In removedFromStageListener he adds the listener instead of removing it. He also never clears the redraw variable so it will always redraw when Event.RENDER is called.

This was so obvious to me that it was none issue. But for the intended audience I could see as being completely confusing and frustrating.

The good news is he does address both these issues in the Errata (but in two separate updates).

Part III:

They are there to support some concepts discussed in the book; they should have been before Part II and they are like a scholastic version of the content covered (not a bad thing; it is just what it is).

Extra Content:
His source download is one of the most horribly organized "extra" content downloads I've ever ran into. He lists everything by name not chapter. Some code is included some is not. Both combined I find my self spending extra time trying to find content never knowing if is just labeled funny or just not documented at all. Over all your best bet it to purchase this as a pdf book so you can just copy and paste the examples.

Bottom line:
These writers need to stop trying to create these "everything covered" books. Ultimately they are rushed, shallow and alienate their intended audience.

I would still recommend this book as really I've found no other resource except for the language reference that goes over the material that is discussed in this book. Just be sure that you have the Errata handy!