ActionScript: The Definitive Guide: Mastering Flash Programming

Macromedia Flash is the obvious choice for delivering multimedia over the Web. At the heart of Flash's power is ActionScript, the product's powerful object-oriented scripting language. ActionScript is based on JavaScript, making it easy for Web developers new to Flash to get up to speed. ActionScript: The Definitive Guide is a tutorial and reference to ActionScript that meets the needs of both new Flash developers learning the language and experienced coders who need a daily reference.

Author Colin Moock starts off with a primer to Flash terminology and a quick example application--an interactive quiz. Following that, the book quickly gets down to ActionScript nuts and bolts. The first part covers the basics of the language, such as operators, variable scope, and conditional logic, in a traditional presentation. A few lines of example code illustrate each concept.

Critical topics like arrays, movie clips, and object-oriented programming are covered well at the detail level, though a more extensive example application would really have come in handy to illustrate the big picture. The back of the book contains an excellent reference to the ActionScript language, complete with inline example code. ActionScript is an important tool to master, and ActionScript: The Definitive Guide is a fine means to that end. --Stephen W. Plain