Three ActionScript 3.0 Conversion Books of Interest
Looking back on the book projects I participated in over the course of 2008, I notice that the two ActionScript 3.0 books I served as principal tech editor are both out. The ActionScript 3.0 Migration Guide by New Riders/Pearson is a compact guide illuminating some broadstrokes of migration from As2 to AS3. The ActionScript 3.0 Visual QuickStart Guide by Peachpit Press from my Community MX colleague Derrick Ypenburg, is a great primer on the basics of ActionScript 3.0, which is also a useful primer for those converting to ActionScript 3.0 for the first time.
There’s an interesting back story to the AS3 VQSG: I was actually commissioned to write this book, and got as far as writing the outline and scope of the text. At the time I just started writing two books, this one and the Professional Flex 3 book, and it didn’t take me long to realize that writing two heavy books at once would be career suicide, as I would have no time for client work (a man’s got to eat, right?) But I can’t just drop the book: I am honour-bound to find myself a replacement. So I call up my colleague Derrik Ypenburg: we talk about the book, he agrees to take on the project, and we decide that I’ll stay on as the tech editor. Derrick did a great job of writing the text, and at times the project felt more like a collaboration, a co-creation than an editing job — even though Derrick did all the hard work ;) — which is how all team projects should be. Well done Derrick.
As for the Amazon reviews on the first book, I think they’re a little harsh: the ActionScript 3.0 Migration Guide was intended as a primer, almost a pocket guide, not a cookbook. Though in fairness I do think that in Pearson’s efforts to mimic their competitor’s QuickStart format, they skimped on space which could have been better reserved for more detail. From what I heard, a lot of good content got left out of that book due to space requirements.
Tech editing these two books was a time-consuming and detail-oriented task which was actually quite fun, and taught me a lot about the nitty-gritty details of the language I assumed I knew, until I had to tech edit someone else’s text. Such attention to detail served me well in writing Professional Flex 3 later in 2008*.
(*And yes, Professional Flex 3 will eventually be out. But a book weighing in at over 1300 pages takes time to write, and to edit. Rest assured, it is coming sometime in 2009. : ) More details to come as soon as I can release specifics.)
Another great conversion book I just read is the ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide by O’Reilly, co-written by my colleague and friend David Stiller. Centred around teching ActionScript from a CS4 perspective, this book is so chock full of useful conversion information, it should have been named as the “Complete ActionScript 3.0 Conversion Reference”. I’m in the middle of a huge AS1-to-AS3 conversion project myself, and I’ve found this volume useful on occasion to remind myself of things I seldom use.
With all the hoopla about Flex, many Flash developers have been feeling a little out of the loop, which is partly justified by the lack of intermediate-level AS3 books centred around programming in Flash CS4. This book brings back the focus squarely on the Flash AS3 developer, covering everything from advanced ActionScript Publish Settings in Flash CS4, to using the Flash CS4 component set, and creating your own WebService Connector component, which has been lacking in Flash since AS2.
The second part of the book focuses on solving specific problems in a cookbook-style approach. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but most of the problems this section aims to solve are those which typically come up for people who are trying to migrate from AS1 or AS2 to AS3, which is one of the reasons this is such a great conversion book.
The last section is about conversion techniques, and does a great job describing some of the most common conversion challenges ActionScript 2.0 programmers may encounter, along with conversion solutions. This section could use a little more advanced detail, such as hacking around the lack of onReleaseOutside on onDragOut events, but I think they did a great job given the space and scope of the book. Any more detail and you’d have to write a book completely on conversion techniques.
I am sure there are other AS3 books out there which serve just as well as conversion manuals: these are but three of the AS3 books which take a prominent place in my library.