Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source [With CDROM]

Invested way more time in this book than I thought I would, ... received way more value that I predicted I would. After quite a few weeks of trying to find time to finish up the last couple of chapters in this book I am now just finding time to write a review that I thought would be completed way before now. Between the full-time job and other projects, it has been difficult to wrap this one up ... but I am glad that I did. Just in time for the v3.0. About the Authors: At first glance of the Bios section you will know that the authors of this book are way more than qualified. Jeff Tapper was on the MAX conference stage last year and I have personally attended the Adobe Authorized Flex Train the Trainer event with Matt Boles. (excellent instructor and technical expert to say the least) The other authors I have not met but they have well recognized names in the industry. This book is 581 pages and consists of 25 task driven chapters that walk you through an entire project from start to finish. (The Flex Grocer) It follows the traditional "Macromedia Training from the Source" format and is very well written. The TFS book series has always been a personal favorite of mine and they are typically tightly coded with consistent quality. It makes me very unhappy to imagine that the TFS books will cease to exist or even more frightfully be replaced by the Classroom in a Book series. We'll see what happens? The book is almost error free and there is a site that the authors have published that references any errata. The book eases you into working with simple XML data structures and controls and moves you toward FDS and also includes data management with CFCs. There is a nice introduction to the value object pattern as well as ActionScript if you may be new to either of these topics. You will probably need a supplemental book if you are not familiar with ActionScript. I had already attended the five day Flex Train the Trainer session before I started on this book and my goal of working through this book was to make sure that everything started to sink in within a reasonable time frame after attending the class. Some of the concepts or items that I found to be of high value included a refresher on event flow and event bubbling, formatters and validators, and the history manager. Lesson 18 was my first introduction to charting data in Flex and as you probably would guess, Flex makes this a cakewalk. No doubt this book is a FIVE STAR. I am sure that the authors have plans of updating it for Flex 3.0.

I was a vocal Flex skeptic, this book turned that around quickly. I'd recommend this as the entry point for anyone looking to learn Flex 2. And, I'd recommend learning Flex because it's the future of rich UI.

We've spent $3000+ getting introductory courses into this software, and this book may have done the trick. I'm still glad I had the courses because they gave me some instant leverage. But I didn't walk away with knowledge in areas that were absolutely important. For instance, my class didn't cover anything on the combo/drop down boxes and how to get them to connect to outside data sources, such as a XML file. HOWEVER, this book had several samples on connecting to various data sources with combo boxes. This book is a life saver. Combo boxes play a big role in my apps. Anyway, it "walks you through the process." According to some who've bought the book, it seems tedious. But the programming language is very specific and very detailed. This book explains everything in a rational step by step manner, and informing you of relevant things which are associated with the lesson. So if your working in the combo-box area for instance, the book will also give you detailed pointers on data services... not just the combo box. (Data services is a term we use in flex to describe how we connect to data, servers, or some scripts to execute a command...) Also, the book is set up so I can either get something quickly to do something specific, or I can go through the lesson. VERY HANDY. Each chapter also tells you how long the lesson will take. Great for planning your training. I hesistated buying this book because of the reviews I read until I had no choice but to buy it because none of my expensive 'authorized' training manuals gave me the critical information I needed. DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE. This is your best source for information. Make no mistake about that.

Great and thorough introduction to Flex2. One recommendation to authors would be to outline the project in the beginning of the book so that as developer reader knows what is he trying to achieve in the project, besides learning :)

I am only halfway through this book but, after less than two days, it helped me create a simple Flex 2 application. I am proficient in Flash 8 and ActionScript 2, but I struggled a bit with the Flex framework. The two negative reviews are strange. You cannot call this low book "low quality." I've done every exercise up to the halfway point - and I haven't found a single error! The guy who reports typos is just wrong (i.e., "end " implies "". This won't give you trouble...), the ones he cites are not. Also, I don't quite understand the point of the reviewer who would prefer a "conceptual method." I don't know about you, but my goal is to learn how to use the tool...doing concrete exercises is a terrific way to learn concepts. Especially in the flex framework, a concept sounds good until you try and code it. I learn much better with examples. Also, the focus here is not ActionScript 3.0, rather it's about the Flex development environment. I like AS so I sort of resisted Flex, but wow, it's really powerful - I can't believe how easy it is to do some things.