Flex 4 In Action – the team
Well we’re off to a great start with the successor to Flex 3 In Action, appropriately titled Flex 4 In Action (Fx4iA for short).
Joining the crew this round is Mr. Flash Platformist, Dan Orlando. Dan’s been around the block and has had a long history with the Flash and Flex platform. No stranger to writing, Dan’s has his works published in PHP Architect magazine, Adobe Developer Connection, Flash and Flex Developer Magazine, Amazon Developer Connection, IBM Developer Works, PHPBuilder.com, and much more.
Another new member to the team is John C. Bland II, an Adobe Community Expert who is the founder of Katapult Media – a web development shop specializing in the Flash/Flex platform, along with PHP, .NET, and Java. Passionate about giving back to the community, John is also a veteran writer with various books and articles up his sleeve on topics such as Dreamweaver, AIR, ColdFusion, ActionScript, and Flash.
Returning for another round is myself, Tariq Ahmed. I’m an Adobe Community Expert who manages a team of RIA developers at a boutique software consulting shop known as Amcom Technology. I’m also the creator of Community Flex, a portal that aggregates news, and the best tips around the net on Flex.
We’re feverishly writing away on this upcoming book, so stay tuned!
Advanced Reusability in Flex
Just recently added to the Adobe Developer Center is Flex 3 In Action’s chapter on Advanced Reusability.
This chapter is a look into the various options you have in terms of sharing your code amongst various features in a project, across projects and applications, and from a deployment perspective.
Topics include:
- Runtime shared libraries
- Shared reusability
- The Module API
- Adding patches
- Refactoring
Other free chapters:
- Chapter 4 on display layout
- Chapter 23 on debugging and testing
3 Versions of the book with each purchase
All book purchases of Flex 3 In Action include the hardcopy, the Flex 3 In Action PDF (via download) , and the Flex 4 In Action PDF (via download when available). Inside each book is an insert that contains a code and URL that you can use to grab the PDF versions of the book.
Flex 3 in Action – Includes 2 Free eBooks
Most prefer the print version of a book – it’s nice to be able to sit down somewhere comfortable and read. But soft copies are equally as nice – allowing you to search for content, copy and paste code, etc…
Well with Flex 3 in Action, with each purchase not only do you (obviously) get the physical book, but you also get the PDF version of it, and you’ll get a the PDF of Flex 4 In Action when it becomes available.
Free chapters on layout, containers, debugging, and testing
We posted two chapters from Flex 3 in Action, Chapter 4 on Layout and Containers, and Chapter 23 on Debugging and Testing.
Chapter 4 includes topics such as:
- How to layout your Flex components
- Containers available for layout
- Absolute and automatic layout
- Using constraint based layout
- Variable/Dynamic vs. fixed sizing
- Using Repeaters for layout
Chapter 23 includes:
- Debugging applications
- Flex Builder’s debugger and profiler
- Third party tools
- Unit Testing
- Functional Testing
Android + ColdFusion + Flex at the Toronto FUG
Flex in Action co-author Faisal Abid will be presenting at the March 26th Toronto Flex User Group on how you can get the Google Android G1 to play with Flex and ColdFusion.
For more information visit the TFUG home page.
FiA Review by Sami Hoda
Sami Hoda, an Adobe Community Expert, wrote a review of Flex 3 In Action based on Manning Publication’s Early Access Program that gives readers the opportunity to read a book while it’s being written (and in it’s unpolished state).
Here’s a snippet of what he had to say:
“Yes, its massive. While this can be a bit overwhelming to newbies, the ‘in Action’ part of the title should give you an indication that this book is full of examples, and thats a good thing… Provides a step by step approach… Talks high-level AND low-level… Covers end to end development, from basics to reusability to customization to testing to deployment”
FiA reviewed by Abdul Qabiz
Industry blogger Abdul Qabiz recently wrote a review of Flex 3 In Action. Here’s a collection of snippets:
“..the only book, which covers Adobe Flex, in-depth… Authors have put tremendous amount of effort to make things easier to understand… Each chapter has a lot of details – background, examples, use-cases and of course best-practices.”
The full posting can be read on his blog.
Abdul is a former employee of Adobe and Yahoo, and is the User Group Manager for the Flex India user group. Currently he runs a software development company.
RIA industry guru Ryan Stewart writes FiA’s foreward
Ryan Stewart is a household name when it comes to the RIA ecosystem. Although Ryan works as an official RIA evangelist for Adobe, he was preaching the gospel of RIAs ever since the term was coined. His blogs at Digital Backcountry and his ZDNet hosted Universal Desktop have been his conduit for sharing his tips, tricks, and industry insight.
So I was quite honored when Ryan agreed to do the foreword for Flex 3 In Action. In the foreword he shares his take on where RIAs have come from, where they’re headed, and the journey it’s been.
Thanks Ryan!
Flex 3 In Action headed for print
That’s right boys and girls, the book is headed for print! For those that purchased the eBook version it should be available around January 13th, and the print version is targetted for January 26th.
The 2008 early access version of this book is in the Top 10 best seller list for Manning (the publisher), and reviews have been constructively positive. So if you or someone you know is in the market for a Flex book, you’ll definitely want to get your hands on a copy of this.
Flex 3 in Action review by Ray Camden
When you mention the name Ray Camden, those in the ColdFusion community will immediately recognize the name. Ray is an active participant with a huge following on his blog, and has been incredibly successful with his various initiatves such as BlogCFC, and RIAForge. Even his experiments such as coldfusionBloggers earns an impressive degree of traction.
Ray recently read an early draft of the book (meaning it hadn’t gone through any proof reading or editorial swags yet) and posted a thorough review on his blog.
The number one thing that struck me about this book is how well it presents the basic concepts. The book will often make comparisons to “traditional” web development (html/js) and how it compares to Flex. This makes things a lot easier to grok for those of us moving from the HTML development to RIA work. Those of you who use ColdFusion (a few of my readers, right?) will also be happy to see many comparisons between Flex and ColdFusion concepts. All in all this makes for a very friendly book.
About
Flex In Action (FiA) is a book for coders who come from traditional web technologies, and progressively takes them on a journey of understanding. Flex can easily be frustrating to newcomers who are used to the ease of their current language, so FiA takes an approach of leveraging your existing skills by using examples that you can relate to in your current tech vs how it’s done in Flex. It gradually introduces topics on an as needed basis so that you only need to worry about learning one thing at a time. Plus various ways of doing the same thing are explained in depth so that you understand your options… and lastly, FiA makes learning Flex fun!
Available on Amazon for $31.49, includes PDF versions!
