Richard Summerhayes Blog

You can never have too many ActionScript books, at least in my experience it always helps to have multiple takes on explaining a technique or solution. At current count I have 8 AS3 books and 1 pdf edition of the AS3 programmers guide from the Adobe Flash team. So here’s a brief rundown of each, their strengths and weaknesses, and whom they are most suitable for.

I would like to add that I leant AS3 from the point of view of being a designer and flash IDE user. My view of the books are skewed towards this view, as opposed to coming from a programing background.

Essential ActionScript 3.0, Colin Moock, O’Reilly Press.

I start with this book as it’s where I started when I began with AS3. It’s been dubbed the “Authority” or “Goto” book by many. It’s a heavy read, 900 odd pages of pure information, no pictures, just pure AS3 pleasure. This book is for those looking to learn the language as opposed to those looking for a ‘how to guide’ for common techniques. Perhaps it’s important to point out here that it’s alright to only learn parts of AS3, you don’t necessarily need to learn the entire language, especially if you’re a designer as opposed to a developer. However if AS3 is something you’re itching to get to grips with, this book should be part of your library. I spent a week away from my computer, sat down with this book and lots of hot tea. It gets heavy and very technical at times, but like anything worth learning, it takes commitment, but pays dividends further down the line.

ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook, Lott, Schall & Peters, O’Reilly Press.

Another O’Reilly book, which in my experience usually equates to quality. This book does as the cover suggests, it provides you with a cookbook of AS3 recipes. It provides solutions to some of the most common needs in AS3 programming. It often finds it’s way on to my desk when I have a very specific need, however I’ve never read this book from cover to cover. My advice, scan through it’s content online and if it contains more than a handful of useful recipes you know you’ll use in you work, then go ahead and purchase it, as it will pay for it self. The other main benefit of this book is that it isn’t as heavy, you can chose to read just parts of it and you still benefit.

Learning ActionScript 3.0, Rich Shupe with Zevan Rosser, O’Reilly Press.

So this is the last of the O’Reilly books that I own, and it is the most geared towards designers as opposed to developers. This is a great book to read if you’re comfortable with the Flash CS3 software program and you’ll interesting in complementing your skills with a sprinkling of AS3. It’s not as heavy or as daunting as the two previous books above.  It teaches all the basics and it’s easy to jump in and use specific chapters in this book. If you’re not sure whether AS3 is something you want to learn inside out, or are simply hesitant to jump from AS2 to AS3, then check this book out as it will help you make that decision.

ActionScript 3.0 Bible, Roger Braunstein, Mims H. Wright, Joshua J. Noble, Wiley Press.

This is the most recent book I’ve purchased and it is right up their at the top of my list. I found lots of useful information, including stuff that had not been mentioned in the other books. It’s comprehensive and technical. Perhaps the ideal book for those that want to learn in depth about AS3, but find the Essential ActionScript 3.0 book by Colin Moock too daunting. Like I say the book is comprehensive, there is a lot of content and therefore it may be less suitable as an introduction to AS3 than other books. But this isn’t to say a beginner cannot use this book. All in all it’s perfect for those who don’t want to buy too many books, as this will server nearly all of your needs in one go.

Object-Orientated ActionScript 3.0, Peter Elst, Sas Jacobs and Todd Yard, Friends of Ed.

So this book isn’t for the novice coder. It’s clearly focused on the concept of Object-Orientated programing and as such isn’t necessarily the best place to start for designers wishing to learn AS3. However if you’re a programmer/developer with a keen interest in programming in a formal way, perhaps needing to write code with a team, then this is a good book for you. When I started to read this book I was learning AS3 and therefore often ended up referring back to other books to get me going. However I think this book has become more relevant for me as my skills have progressed. It enlightens you on the different approaches that can be taken when coding, so try this book if you’re fairly adept at AS3 and wish to improve your process. This book also covers both the Flash and Flex environments.

Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex. Steve Webster, Todd Yard and Sean McSharry, Friends of Ed.

As the title suggests this is a foundation or introduction to AS3. Like the Cookbook and the AS3 bible, this provides essential techniques and useful code examples for AS3. It isn’t as comprehensive as the AS3 bible. I must admit that this book hasn’t received as much attention from me as some of the others, mainly because by the time I purchased it, I’d moved past my initial learning phase. However it does prove useful when I need to do something very specific. I like having alternate books to refer to. If I need to build a mp3 player, I want to look at the approach taken by multiple books, and having this book is one more option. My advice, compare this to other similar books at your local bookstore. Sometimes it comes down to a very specific need and this book may have just what you’re looking for.

Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Animation Making Things Move, Keith Peters, Friends of Ed.

So we’re down to the more specific books, ones that concentrate on specialist areas. This book is best described by a line I’ll lift from it’s front cover, “Find all the formulas and techniques you’ll need to create dynamic scripted animations, including real-world physics.” This book really unleashes the power of math and dynamic animation through code. Bottom line if you’ve already learnt or have a foundation in AS3, and you want to program cool animations with realistic physics, then seek out this book. The contents of this book really is a great indication of whether this book will be useful to you or not.

Flash Video for Professionals, Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web, Lisa Larson and Renee Costantini, Sybex Press.

This book although not specific to AS3, is a great book for those needing to learn more about Flash’s video capabilities. It provides in depth code in both AS2 and AS3 format. It also goes into detail about the options out there and the solutions you should chose when deploying video across the web. Video is such a hot commodity on the web right now, that it cannot hurt to know your stuff when it comes to flash and video.

Programming ActionScript 3.0, PDF reference provided by Adobe

So perhaps the first place to start before you buy any books is to go get the Free “Programming ActionScript 3.0″ PDF from Adobe. I’ve referred to this on many an occasion. It comes from the horses mouth and is very informative. The only downside is that you need to read it on screen, unless you print it out.

Conclusion

So there you have it, not one bad review. For me it’s about utilizing each book in a different way. I think that nine books is plenty, more than most will need. But if you’re learning something from scratch then multiple perspectives and teaching techniques will benefit you, at lest until you find which books and authors work for you. Finally I complement my on going learning with blogs and video tutorials. Books are useful but are by no means the only way to go. I like having the books because I can read them whilst away from the computer. Anyway I hope this has been useful and thank all the authors who have spent so much time and dedication producing these books