Adobe Flex 3 [With CDROM]

Adobe Flex 3 Training from the Source is a kick-start guide to learning the revolutionary "web 2.0" capabilities this present and ever-growing technology provides. Authors Jeff Tapper, Michael Labriola, and Matthew Boles establish clear, step-by-step tutorials and application development that are clear and easy to absorb no matter the scope or scale of coding. What's best in the 26 lessons is the gradual build-up of skills--each lesson carefully stretching previous chapter's elements and taking them to a new level of programming and extension. This build-up and repetition of skills helps to solidify concepts, syntax, and best practices while never becoming redundant. Whether readers come from an existing Flash/ActionScript background, an application designer needing additional coding skills, or as a total newcomer to OOP concepts and Rich Internet Application development, Training from the Source is the finest start. Without a doubt, this book steps up to the challenge of introducing and showcasing the amazing capabilities Flex 3 has to offer and opens a door to endless possibilities for all involved in the design, development and deployment of Internet-base applications.

This book is the perfect option for those curious about Flex and in need of an engaging hand holding session. While completion of this book will not ready the reader for the growing market of high paying flex gigs, it will provide the occasional developer with enough knowledge to start tinkering, and most importantly, feel comfortable in the development environment. My best advice to the reader completing this course, is to ease through the exercises and realize that with the breadth of flex, there are concepts that you won't understand till later lessons. Simply read, follow instructions, and enjoy the hands on in depth tour of this product. It would be impossible to cover all of Flex, MXML, and ActionScript in one text, let alone attempt to teach best practices and application design. Given broad subject matter though, it does a great job tapping into many areas. While the book lacks in depth, it gives a good enough overview for doors to open for the curious. Most of the text is accurate providing clean examples that take the watchful reader from code to compile with no errors. Halfway into the book (starting around Chapter 11), small glitches creep into the material from missing semi-colons to missing starter lesson files. For the apt student, these are overcome with a little active thinking. I would recommend this book to any entry level RIA developers and would even consider it as a text for intern programs and in-house training.

I love Adobe "Training from the Source" series and has been following them since earlier versions of Flex. It include an easy to follow project and covers many areas of RIA development that I use at work. A great book for anyone interested in developing RIA using Adobe Flex!

I'm a programmer who has been tasked with learning ActionScript and Flex for a new project. I first picked up Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex (Foundation) in an effort to learn both. I found that book difficult to digest as someone who didn't have previous experience w/ Flash. I then purchased this book, and it has been immensely helpful. It has lots of concrete examples to aid your understanding of the concepts being taught. The book is upfront about it not being an intro to ActionScript, however some understanding of ActionScript is helpful. ActionScript and Flex more even more closely linked then ActionScript and Flash, and I don't know that the book would be as helpful to me if I hadn't picked up AS before picking up this book. All of the examples require some use of AS, so if you don't have clue 1 regarding AS, you might be in the dark. The book can move a bit slow at times, as there is a lot of material to cover. Personally, I didn't mind this because everything that is covered is absolutely relevant to developing Flex applications. The book also indirectly teaches good design methodologies as a result of the order in which the lessons run. This book is an excellent tool.

This is a big book, but very easy to read quickly. It is a step by step instruction book, for total beginners to Flex and guides you through using the Flex Builder GUI designer in Eclipse. Unlike a lot of GUI step-by-steppers it manages to pack a fair bit of information in its 500 odd pages because it doesn't pack itself with just screenshots. You don't have to do the lessons systematically - I didn't. But if you want to fire up Eclipse and look at some particular aspect of their code or work through a chapter, they have, very thoughtfully, included the before and after code of _each_ lesson on the CD. Despite being stripped down to the essentials I found the examples to be informative and good showcases for Flex capabilities - they are neither trivial, nor needlessly complex. It's not very strong on ActionScript theory as it concentrates mostly on Flex. And it doesn't talk about databases. So you may want to pick up another book to supplement it. FWIW I am quite impressed with Flex and its Eclipse designer.