Welcome to .flashgeek. book reviews. The premise is simple: the nice folks at New Riders have offered up a bevy of Macromedia Flash books for review, and I've offered to give my views on their merit. Why my views are more important than anyone else's is truly beyond me. However, I'll strive to provide a fair an honest evaluation of the books under my care.If you ever disagree with my book reviews or think I've lead you down the primrose path, feel free to flame me on the .flashgeek. boards or on the pro_flash list.
Enough with the introductions, let's get into some literature. (For a complete list of Flash books available for purchase, click here. For a complete list of Microsoft Powerpoint books for purchase, click here. )
Title Inside Flash
Authors Jody Keating, Figleaf Software
Details
$45.00 U.S.
$67.95 CAN
£34.99 UK971 pages + CD
Value Beginner: High
Advanced: Medium to High
Expert: Medium
Short take A substantial tome covering a variety of important Flash topics. For beginners, it's a must-read, especially those trying to get up to speed with Flash 5. Previous reviews
Flash deConstruction by Todd Purgason, et al.The Review
You'll notice that I'm likely to start these reviews with a bit of tangential fluff. This time will be no different. Fear not, gentle reader, the tangents will provide valuable context.When it comes to learning and literature, there are two types of people in the world: muckers and ingesters. (Okay, there are probably more types than that, but I'm trying to simplify, here.)
Muckers, the group to which I happen to belong, learn through good, old-fashioned mucking with stuff. They'll tear open and new piece of software or video game or whatever, install it, and start hacking away on examples or downloads or whatever there is with which to muck. Not much for reading the muckers. Not much for reading, that is, until they're thoroughly stumped by some base functionality that generally appears in the FAQ or the manual. Only at that point do their pristine user manuals receive any attention.
Ingesters are almost exactly the opposite. Ingesters rip open a new piece of software or video game or whatever, throw the installation media aside, shut off their machine, and jump into an easy chair to curl up with the user manual or the guidebook they purchased. They're not much for breaking things. They'd much rather be near genius right out of the gates.
Neither are expressly good or expressly bad. One of my good friends is an ingester. As I said, I'm a mucker. He gets a new video game and he reads the manual, while I attempt to figure it out, controller in hand. Of course, he kicks my butt over the first few weeks, but that's not really the point, is it? Maybe it is. And, that's what brings us to today's book: Inside Flash.
Muckers and ingesters rejoice. This weighty tome presents nearly 1000 pages of detail and (and!) a CD of examples. What's that mean? That's right. Muckers get what they want: a CD full of things to break, fix, and break again. Ingesters get a big, heavy book with all the details they crave. Once the muckers have hit the wall, they can trade spots, because muckers are going to find some hidden magic in these pages, and ingesters are going to find some valuable guidance on the CD.
All in all, Inside Flash is a brilliant book for the uninitiated. Crafted by the incredibly intelligent folks over at Figleaf Software. (I think I saw Chrissy Rey's name in there, as well. She runs a site called flashlite.net that has some excellent Flash tutorials, as well.)It not only helps beginners get their heads around the concepts and tactics of Flash, it gets them into the Flash mindset. Truly, it helps them begin thinking about Flash as more experienced Flashers think. Soon, action script and movie clips are within the beginners common lexicon, opening up a whole bevy of potential learning.
For more advanced users, you'll find concepts like realistic mouth movements for animated characters intriguing. Or, maybe you'll dive into OOP and XML. In any case, they'll be plenty of stuff that you don't know in here. Pick it up and thumb through it if you don't believe me.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss.
