Customer Reviews
A Solid Introduction to Flex - By: Darren Osadchuk, 10 Dec 2008 
If you're looking for a no-nonsense, hands-on introduction to Flex 3, "Adobe Flex 3: Training From the Source" is a good starting point. The book is organized into a number of chapters, each of which contains a specific tutorial to help teach the topic of that chapter.
All of the tutorials revolve around the development of a grocery store e-commerce application starting right from the initial design. The benefit of this approach is that it reinforces how each of the chapters builds on what you learnedin previous chapters to really flesh out the app. The downside is that it's not a particularly sexy RIA, though if you're an organic grocer you may beg to differ.
Helpfully, the book provides estimates of how long the chapters should take to complete; if you're already comfortable with coding of some sort - ActionScript, etc. - you may find that it doesn't take you quite as long to complete a chapter. Even so, I found the estimates to comein handy if I had only a limited period of time to spend with the book, so that I could judge how much I could accomplish.
One particular nit I have with the book is thatin the discussion of the code, the book will present a few lines of code, explain what they do, present another few lines & explain those, & so on. I found this to be a little disjointed, & would have preferred to have a solid block of code presented to me that I could read through myself, then read the explanation. This usually means a little more flipping back & forth between the pages, but I prefer to see all of the codein context before reading the explanation.
Allin all, I think this book has provided me with a solid foundationin Flex, but at the same time will be a book that I refer to repeatedly down the road. Give this one a look.
A great book, well structured and written & thoroughly recommended. - By: R. Stocks, 18 Sep 2008 
If, like me, you like the idea of leveraging the Flash/Flex technology for desktop applications & you've had a look through the Adobe online training resources but don't have a clear picturein your mind of how you would go about building a full scale application then this is the book for you. It walks you through the process of creating an online grocery store introducing the various concepts to youin a controlled & well thought through sequence. You will find yourself rewriting code as you go but this serves as an excellent way to highlight some poor practices whilst demonstrating best practice techniques. You will find that you gainin confidence as you work through the chapters needing less & less spoon feeding until you gain enough confidence to make some improvements of your own here & there. By the end, you will be eager & ready to start building your own applications.
There are a handful of mistakesin the book but none of them cause any major difficulties (apart from step 7 on page 580 of chapter 23 which should refer to the file named PrintingTask1.mxml not SortingADG.mxml - well we all make copy-and-paste errors). The accompanying disk provides before & after code for each lesson which is great if you run into difficulties or wish to skip chapters (which I would not recommend).
Great Book - By: Krzysztof Satola, 18 Jul 2008 Adobe Flex 3: Training from the Source is an update to the extremely popular Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source. Authors of the book not only revised the earlier version of the book but also added a few chapters on features such modules, the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), & the advanced DataGrid component.
If you are new to Flex 3, this book will guide you through the process of developing a complete application (an online grocery store) using Adobe Flex Builder 3. This book provides you with all the tools you need to get started. But be aware that to make the most of this book, you should at the very least understand basic web terminology. This book is written assuming that you are comfortable working with other programming languages such as Java, .Net, PHP or ColdFusion. This knowledge let you better understand many comparisons & analogies made to server-side web programming.
If you are more advanced Flex developer you can still find this book compelling. You will especially like to focus on new Flex 3 topics which are discussedin this book. There are many places inside "old chapters" which were updated or extended to reflect changes & improvements availablein Adobe Flex 3.
I am a Flex Developer. Although I have read the Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source book I have also read Adobe Flex 3 version of the book & I do not regret it. It has been worth spending my time on reading. I especially liked new parts on creating modular applications & profiling Flex applications.
If you learn best by doing, this is the book you need. I definitely recommend this book.
