Book by Roger Braunstein et al, JWiley+Sons - $50US
ActionScript 3 Bible by Roger Braunstein, Mims H. Wright, Joshu Noble - Jan 2008,735 pages from JWiley+Sons - $50US
One of the problems with Flash CS3 and Flex is that Adobe, uncharacteristically, has been late in getting documentation about ActionScript 3 to its customers. Yes you can find things spread over helpfiles, an extras CD, and various websites - but the search can be tedious.
So with the ActionScript 3 Bible the authors have an opportunity to deliver the goods all in one place and for the most part they do so admirably. First, there are lots of explanations of and examples for the big changes between ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3. This is not to be taken lightly because in order to get the speed and latest features of the very fast AVM2 Flash Player runtime developers will have to code in ActionScript 3. Also ActionScript 3 means the full conversion to OO and large scale Flash programming - but the price is loss of some ease of coding and much more class based rigor in design and development.
Second, the writers make sure in detail that you get started running the many examples they have provided. This is a "a tricky wicket" to say the least because to get ActionScript 3 to compile and run requires some detail knowledge of the Flash CS3 interface that unfortunately is just not forthcoming in Flash's own helpfiles. Third, the examples run the gamut of games, web pages, to navigation bars - a good but not perfect cross section. It would be nice to have more examples of data connections and use with Adobe's new AIR runtime.
However, the authors make up for this with comprehensive coverage of the new XML extensions in ActionScript plus chapters on Arrays and Objects that are enlightening for their careful coverage of all the intricacies of XML in ActionScript. And in general, there is Bible-like coverage of all the old and new ActionScript Class libraries and associated functions. All in all, this is a very welcome and comprehensive coverage of the new and important elements in Flash and ActionScript 3 development.