Bought two books to learn Flash

I recently decided to learn (self study) Flash after seeing a web site make rather interesting web game, that allowed two players across the internet to play a game against each other, while storing ranking and other information (in a database I presume) which was displayed using HTML.

The current version is Adobe Flash CS4, which uses its own scripting language, ActionScript 3.0. So I went down to the local IT Mall, Funan Center and bought two books on it.

The first book was Flash CS4 "All-In-One" For Dummies (S$69) which I am currently reading. It is a very easy to read book to give me a general background on flash. As I have never used Flash before, I found it helpful, but I think any existing user would find it too simplistic. The jokes it had did not always make me laugh, but together with the colorful pictures, helped break the monotony of reading through each individual tool and option.

The second book ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University (S$61) was purely on using ActionScript 3.0 with source code of examples, including some games that are available from its companion website, FlashGameU.com. That should be a lot more useful to what I plan to do.

In this day and age of downloading books to read, you may ask why did I buy them. Well, I personally like to support stuff I like. Also, I prefer reading actual books instead of binded printouts or photocopies.



In related news yesterday, Adobe is planning that the digital living room will likely support Flash and Flash-based applications at the end of 2009.

Specifically, Adobe has convinced a wide swath of leading technology companies to support a new, optimized Flash Lite runtime for a number of chips that will form the foundation of connected TVs, DVD players, game consoles, and digital media adapters.

[Source: PCMag.com]