Do you want to learn OOP with Actionscript?
I would probably consider myself a designer who codes as opposed to a coder who can design. However I find myself more and more lately spending the majority of my time writing code. The attitude I use to have was only code when needed, get it to work and walk away, with no care for reuse, maintainability or even readability for that matter. It was like building a house of cards, get it up and hope nobody breathes to hard and breaks it. Since Flash has matured over the years though I have become more and more comfortable in the coding arena. I would now say I am as comfortable in SE|PY as I am in Photoshop. This is in large part due to some very great books I have purchased and read over the years.
The book that really got my feet wet with Actionscript was the Foundation Actionscript book by Sham Bhangal (granted the version I read was for Flash MX). This is a must read for anyone just starting out in Actionscript, it is well written, easy to follow along and very little errors (if any).
However if your past the basics, and ready advance and get more familiar with the likes of inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism (its okay if you have no idea what the heck I just said) this book will have you up to speed in no time. The book I am speaking of is Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8 by Peter Elst and Todd Yard (with Sas Jacobs and William Drol). This is my second time through the book (I typically skip around the first time through and then come back and read it straight through if its good enough), and I have to say its probably the best book I've read yet for programming with Actionscript. I know that there are many of you saying "yeah but AS3 is out now and it changes the game", but that's where you'd only be half right. AS3 is out now, but this book will still help. The fundamentals are all the same, this book moves you from timeline coding to class based coding, encapsulation, abstraction, and inheritance. All of which are needed for programming in AS3.
If your a designer wanting to learn how to code, A flex guy who wants more than just what MXML has to offer, a coder from another language wanting to get into Flash, or even if your a proficient AS coder already, this is a book that you MUST HAVE in your library.
View my LinkedIn profile
Become a fan on Facebook
July 15th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Best Flash book of all time.
July 15th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Glad you like the book mate, Todd and Sas absolutely did an outstanding job — was a privilege to work with them
July 15th, 2006 at 11:45 am
@JesterXL – I vaguely remember coming across that link a while back. Probably a good idea to go check it out again, maybe I’ll understand what he’s saying a tad better now
Thanks for the link.
@Peter – Your absolutely right Peter, and my apologies for omitting your name as well (got too ‘copy and paste’ happy from Amazon and didn’t get the whole line of text)
. I have updated the text to reflect ALL of the authors of the book who ALL did an excellent job! Thanks again!
July 15th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Another vote from me..
OOP AS is the Bible that every religious Flash Dev must have..
Thanks to all the authors.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Thanks for the recommendations. These books seem to have quite a reputation. Just as an update, a new OOP AS book is coming out in late July: Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=1590598458
It’s from the same guys, but it seems Sas Jacobs has jumped on board now as well. You should update the blog.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:31 am
@ torncanvas – Thanks for the link. I plan on picking this book up when its released and will likely have another post for the new book at that time. This post does reflect all of the authors of the book I was referring to (thanks Peter).
Looking forward to the new book!
March 28th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
[...] Guide, new to statistics, or both. A user stepping through all the examples in this book would …Do you want to learn OOP with Actionscript? Just Another RantJust Another Rant … a weblog about Flash, Actionscript, web development and any other thing I feel [...]