Anonymous
Posted March 15, 2008
CAST FROM A NEW MOLD Early in the history of the Adobe Flash Platform it was possible to read all of the great books on the subject because there were so few notable titles. However, now with the incredible popularity of Flash CS3 and Flex 3, the industry is flooded with training materials. While decent, most are rehashes of the introductory 'Welcome to Flash/Flex' perspective giving a broad overview without taking the bold position to teach pertinent topics and to teach them correctly. INTRODUCTION This book is a great well rounded resource, perfect for anyone serious about Flex application development. This book 1' features a blend of various learning styles, 2' it offers the right amount of depth to tease & inspire, as well as actually teach, but 3' it is not for all audiences 'and I like that'. LEARNING STYLES With technical literature the tone and style ranges from the dry dictionary-like reference to the micro-task-oriented recipe books. There is not often an editorial voice giving industry insight, technological context, and workflow experience. That is one of my favorite aspects of this AdvanceED book, it gives all that and more. There is a historical introduction to application development, deep coverage on the many steps of the software development lifecycle through the real-world application of techniques on the authors' RMX application project, as well as some relevant, isolated 'albeit kinda' non sequitured' programming recipes that can be plucked from the greater project shown in the book and applied in your own projects with ease. The multiple-learning styles is refreshing for those who have been disappointed by reading many other books. Most of the audience for this book has surely done some reading of tech texts and should appreciate the change of pace. DEPTH AND SCOPE The book lacks the breadth of a thick reference book, but what subjects it covers it covers deeply. Don't expect to be able to crack open a chapter and a fresh Flex project in your Flex builder and get typing. The book doesn't work like that. Its more of a casual read in many parts, fit for any time you get away from your computer. Fit even for some of the less-technical personnel on your team who would like to see the big picture of application development. Project managers, executives, and any creative folks with an eye toward project leadership will get great value from the book, but of course the intended audience is developers. INTENDED AUDIENCE Perhaps rather than titling this section 'Intended' Audience, I should say suggested-by-me audience. Part of the appeal of this book and what sets it apart from what else is available on the subject is its unique perspective. The book focuses on building one application, RMX. This application has a specific purpose and a different one than any we'd likely make as the readers, but one that has components that are immediately relevant to our every day app-developer-lives Styling, UI/UX + Navigation Design, Forms, Video 'that continues to be a big topic these days', It goes on to feature some rare gems such as Advertising 'specifically for Flex' and SEO 'specifically for Flex'. You just don't find those covered anywhere else. CONCLUSION This book is a refreshing read and the only must-read on my Flash bookshelf from this publisher.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
Many Flex books cover the basics—this book does something different, and goes far further. The authors, leading Flash platform developers at Almer/Blank, working with Adobe User Group communities, are the creators of the Rich Media Exchange (RMX), a social media network for Adobe developers. In covering just how the RMX was built, this book contains all the knowledge you need to build similar large-scale rich Internet applications with Adobe Flex.
From the inception of the idea through to deployment, the authors show the techniques needed to plan and build advanced applications. You'll learn how to use forms, styles, validators, video, sound analysis, and framework caching, ensuring you make the most of the features introduced in Flex 3.
Powerful applications require solid back ends. This book shows how to hook up a Flex application to PHP back-end systems such as Drupal and OpenAds. You'll learn how various parts of the RMX were built, including the blogs, event calendar, jobs board, and advertising system—elements that come together to really showcase the power of Flex.
The RMX is built by Adobe developers for Adobe developers—a rewarding community relationship that guarantees results. The same spirit is carried into this book, with the authors wanting and helping to take you to the next level of Flash application development.
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Meet the Author
R Blankis chief technology officer of Almer/Blank, an Adobe Solution Partner based in Venice, California, that specializes in video and application development for the Flash platform, with clients including E! Entertainment, Live Nation, Microsoft, Apple, and IKEA. For over 13 years, he has been an interactive designer, developer, consultant, teacher, and author, specializing in the planning, development, and release of rich interfaces; R has specialized in Flash since 1999. R holds four Flash certifications, was one of the first 50 certified Flash developers in the world,was an author for the Flash MX 2004 Designer Certification Exam, and is a frequent contributor to the Adobe Edge newsletter. In 2003, he founded and continues to manage LAFlash.org, a community of over 3,000 Flash industry professionals and home to three Adobe User Groups for Flash. R also serves on the information technology faculty at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering. Previously, R cofounded and served as director of product and design at Wildform, the makers of the first video encoder for Flash, where he cocreated Flix, the first video encoder for Flash (now owned by On2). R has a master's in business administration in entrepreneurship from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and abachelor's degreein history from Columbia University, and has studied at Cambridge University (U.K.), the University of Salamanca (Spain), and the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Foreign Languages (Russia).
OmarGonzalez is a senior application developer at Almer/Blank who has been developing for the Web since 1997. He has acquired a strong sense for developing accessible sites employing web standards, open source projects, and frameworks like Drupal and CSS. During the quick rise of Flash, he began to incorporate the popular technology into the sites he worked on, adding Flash development as well as PHP and MySQL to his repertoire. He has developed Flash video applications for companies like eHarmony and has spoken at conferences like FITC on such topics as Flash video, Motion XML, and AIR. Over the past two years he has been developing Flex applications, harnessing the power of Flash technology to create cutting-edge rich Internet applications. Omar is on the resident faculty at the Rich Media Institute, teaching topics in Flex, HTML/CSS, and web development, and he is an active member of Los Angeles Flash user groups.
Hasan Otuomeis a senior application developer at Almer/Blank, where he can usually be found developing rich Internet applications for the company's clients. He is an Adobe Flex champion who espouses creative uses and combinations of Flash, Flex, AIR, PHP, MySQL, and ColdFusion for their benefits in creating unique user experiences. When not immersed in client development, Hasan can be found lending a helping hand to the development community at sites such as LAFlash.org, gotoAndLearn.com, TheSourceCode.org, and ActionScript.org.