review by John E. Bowen

Authors Kazoun and Lott present a quite credible case for rich, solid Internet applications with sophisticated interfaces for the end user. They do so by introducing, explaining and giving many examples illustrating the Flex approach and making use of the various tools of the Flex framework. A reader coming to Flex (and Adobe) for the first time could be forgiven for thinking that this is a new programming language called Flex 2. There is no such language. Still, a slightly misleading title is a small thing, easily remedied in the first two chapters; paraphrasing, Flex uses ActionScript, so does Flash, but Flex is, or can be, a whole new way of thinking about application development.

This book is a coder's book. It assumes some familiarity with object oriented programming, hopefully via ActionScript from previous Flash experience. There is a chapter devoted to the MXML language and how Flex Builder can help generate interfaces through MXML; however, the authors are clear to point out that very few applications consist solely of MXML and no ActionScript.

There is a brief mention that Flex 2 requires Flash Player 9. Otherwise, one can't use Flex 2; obviously something of importance to teams deciding where and how to actually deploy their application once it's finished. Mostly, though, the book is forward-looking: if you build it with Flex 2, ActionScript 3 and Flash Player 9, they will come.

There is a chapter on ActionScript 3. It includes an honest assessment that if this is the reader's first encounter with ActionScript, an additional book would help. Kazoun and Lott are not shorting the importance of that programming language, but merely saying there are many more pieces involved in the whole process. In this sense, while fairly thorough for each piece, Programming Flex 2 can be considered an overview. A little attention to the concept of frameworks, user interface screen layout and UI components goes a long way toward helping the developer make sense of the whole alphabet soup of acronyms and buzzwords. Once that is addressed, the next roughly two thirds of the book deal with advanced topics.

What are advanced topics? A short answer would be the kinds of features one does not normally see in Web pages: easy access to audio, video, other media; effects such as gradients, fades, transitions; dynamic changes to CSS; live update of data; validation of client-side data, and more. Many of these are the kinds of things users have come to expect (demand?) from Flash-enabled sites; others help more with the back end, and with the stability and maintenance of the application.

All in all, this effort is informative introduction and guide to a quite possibly daunting set of technologies. Recommended.

Programming Flex 2: The comprehensive guide to creating rich media applications with Adobe Flex

(Programming) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Chafic Kazoun (Author), Joey Lott (Author)

 

• Paperback: 502 pages

• Publisher: Adobe Dev Library (April 16, 2007)

• Language: English

• ISBN-10: 059652689X

 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526894/index.html