Its a big book but it covers quite a bit, i trust Adobe to create good books.

This book is the perfect option for those curious about Flex and in need of an engaging hand holding session. While completion of this book will not ready the reader for the growing market of high paying flex gigs, it will provide the occasional developer with enough knowledge to start tinkering, and most importantly, feel comfortable in the development environment.

My best advice to the reader completing this course, is to ease through the exercises and realize that with the breadth of flex, there are concepts that you won't understand till later lessons. Simply read, follow instructions, and enjoy the hands on in depth tour of this product.

It would be impossible to cover all of Flex, MXML, and ActionScript in one text, let alone attempt to teach best practices and application design. Given broad subject matter though, it does a great job tapping into many areas. While the book lacks in depth, it gives a good enough overview for doors to open for the curious.

Most of the text is accurate providing clean examples that take the watchful reader from code to compile with no errors. Halfway into the book (starting around Chapter 11), small glitches creep into the material from missing semi-colons to missing starter lesson files. For the apt student, these are overcome with a little active thinking.

I would recommend this book to any entry level RIA developers and would even consider it as a text for intern programs and in-house training.

I am presently working my way through this book and am not quite ready to do a full review. However, I came across a link that beginners (like me) will find very useful, as the book assumes that readers already are familiar with the basic concepts of an application platform such as Flex Builder.

When you have questions, google "adobe livedocs flex 3 help" (sorry amazon won't let me post a link), pick the first hit and poke around. You'll find everything the authors didn't feel like explaining, ie basic definitions, explanations of concepts, video tutorials and more.

I found the book to be a bit frustrating. Suffice it to say the book is written for experienced programmers already familiar with OOP/Java/XML/etc.

In my search for a book for beginners, I've seen this one strongly recommended: "The Essential Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0". I like it so far.

Update: Better yet, try the new book The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essential Guide)

I am presently working my way through this book and am not quite ready to do a full review. However, I came across a link that beginners (like me) will find very useful, as the book assumes that readers already are familiar with the basic concepts of an application platform such as Flex Builder.

When you have questions, google "adobe livedocs flex 3 help" (sorry amazon won't let me post a link), pick the first hit and poke around. You'll find everything the authors didn't feel like explaining, ie basic definitions, explanations of concepts, video tutorials and more.

I found the book to be a bit frustrating. Suffice it to say the book is written for experienced programmers already familiar with OOP/Java/XML/etc.

In my search for a book for beginners, I've seen this one strongly recommended: "The Essential Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0". I have not yet read it but if you're a newbie, it may be what you're looking for.

I am presently working my way through this book and am not quite ready to do a full review. However, I came across a link that beginners (like me) will find very useful, as the book assumes that readers already are familiar with the basic concepts of an application platform such as Flex Builder.

When you have questions, go here and poke around. You'll find everything the authors didn't feel like explaining:

[..]

You'll find basic definitions, explanations of concepts, video tutorials and more.

Update: In fact, the more I read, the more I dislike the book. The authors never take a moment to give a basic explanation of the components they speak of. They simply launch into discussions of component behaviors without first talking about what it is and why you'd use it.

Equally aggravating is the fact that they don't tell you what the goal of the code they are describing is until you execute the code at the end of the chapter. A good training manual first lays out the goal of the code, then details how to achieve those results. This book jumps straight to the details with the reader having no clue as to where it's headed. Once you know what you were trying to accomplish, you have to go back and reread everything to put it in context and fully understand it. It's bizarre.

First saw 12 lengths of 2x4 lumber to 8 feet each. Now nail them together at right angles in all three dimensions. Line the framework on all sides with plywood. Now put down a raised subfloor and cover with masonite. Attach the pre-fabricated structure from Vendor ActionScript and cover with water resistant tiles. Look! You've built a shed!

Wouldn't it have been useful to know what the goal was before I launched into the details? Now that you know what it is, you have to go back and reread all those details so they actually make sense, right?

This book reads like you encountered 4 Flex veterans at a cocktail party and are walking into the middle of an hourlong computer programming shoptalk conversation. There's not much plain language and they don't seem to have the time to bring you up to speed. If I could change my rating it would be 2, maybe 3 stars.

I am presently working my way through this book and am not quite ready to do a full review. However, I came across a link that beginners (like me) will find very useful, as the book assumes that readers already are familiar with the basic concepts of an application platform such as Flex Builder.

When you have questions, go here and poke around. You'll find everything the authors didn't feel like explaining:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html

You'll find basic definitions, explanations of concepts, video tutorials and more.

I love Adobe "Training from the Source" series and has been following them since earlier versions of Flex. It include an easy to follow project and covers many areas of RIA development that I use at work. A great book for anyone interested in developing RIA using Adobe Flex!

Excellent book and a great ongoing reference. What it didn't tell me, I've been able to find pretty easily on the web

Only a couple of things could have made this better
1) COLOUR ... I'm willing to pay more for colour text, especially when graphical coding is in place
2) More on AIR Controls
3) More on AS3 Flash libraries

I'm a programmer who has been tasked with learning ActionScript and Flex for a new project. I first picked up Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex (Foundation) in an effort to learn both. I found that book difficult to digest as someone who didn't have previous experience w/ Flash. I then purchased this book, and it has been immensely helpful. It has lots of concrete examples to aid your understanding of the concepts being taught.

The book is upfront about it not being an intro to ActionScript, however some understanding of ActionScript is helpful. ActionScript and Flex more even more closely linked then ActionScript and Flash, and I don't know that the book would be as helpful to me if I hadn't picked up AS before picking up this book. All of the examples require some use of AS, so if you don't have clue 1 regarding AS, you might be in the dark.

The book can move a bit slow at times, as there is a lot of material to cover. Personally, I didn't mind this because everything that is covered is absolutely relevant to developing Flex applications. The book also indirectly teaches good design methodologies as a result of the order in which the lessons run. This book is an excellent tool.

Flex 3 Training from the source. Is a great book. It offers a very in depth walk through of the inner workings of Flex. The book is based on a continuous project that is added too from chapter to chapter. While this method is great if you plan on following the book straight through it can make the book hard to use as a reference. This means that even though the advanced examples are superior in nature to similar books there is so much underlying code you have to look at first that you cannot quickly get a grasp on the advanced techniques. This book is also a little cumbersome to get setup. The advanced chapters in the book are based on Coldfusion and the book requires that you setup a standalone development server. While this is not a big deal it can just be a pain when all you want to do is get into the book and start writing some code. On the up side the authors of this book know there stuff and have an advanced understanding of how flex applications should be assembled and it shows again and again in Flex 3 Training from the Source.

I just finished the book from cover to cover. It took me about 3 weeks with some evenings and a couple of full days.

To grasp everything, I commented all the code as I was going. I mean, comments that explain in detail my perception of what was happening. I thought that this allowed me to actually think about what I was doing rather than just taking a typing test.

Indeed, that is the trouble with this book, it is easy to not "pay attention" as everything you learn is by example with little up front theory. You could find yourself typing 100 lines of code and not actually realizing what you were typing.

If you get this book for learning Flex rather than looking up quick examples, you'll be happy.

There were a few code example problems (errors) that were easy to figure out and correct in lieu of any errata that I could find. There are times when they are a little short on explanation as well.

I still find myself having just a couple of basic questions about some of the examples.

This is a big book, but very easy to read quickly. It is a step by step instruction book, for total beginners to Flex and guides you through using the Flex Builder GUI designer in Eclipse.

Unlike a lot of GUI step-by-steppers it manages to pack a fair bit of information in its 500 odd pages because it doesn't pack itself with just screenshots. You don't have to do the lessons systematically - I didn't. But if you want to fire up Eclipse and look at some particular aspect of their code or work through a chapter, they have, very thoughtfully, included the before and after code of _each_ lesson on the CD.

It's not very strong on ActionScript theory as it concentrates mostly on Flex. And it doesn't talk about databases. So you may want to pick up another book to supplement it.

FWIW I am quite impressed with Flex and its Eclipse designer. So far, it looks like Ajax on steroids, minus the presentation headaches that a web newbie like me gets from trying to cajole HTML and CSS to his bidding. Flex seems to fit a programmer's mindset fairly well. Combined with a fair dose of platform and server agnosticism and with a commitment of Adobe to open source quite a bit of the technology stack. Good stuff.

This is a big book, but very easy to read quickly. It is a step by step instruction book, for total beginners to Flex and guides you through using the Flex Builder GUI designer in Eclipse.

Unlike a lot of GUI step-by-steppers it manages to pack a fair bit of information in its 500 odd pages because it doesn't pack itself with just screenshots. You don't have to do the lessons systematically - I didn't. But if you want to fire up Eclipse and look at some particular aspect of their code or work through a chapter, they have, very thoughtfully, included the before and after code of _each_ lesson on the CD.

It's not very strong on ActionScript theory as it concentrates mostly on Flex. And it doesn't talk about databases. So you may want to pick up another book to supplement it.

FWIW I am very impressed with Flex and its Eclipse designer. So far, it looks like Ajax on steroids, minus the presentation headaches that a web newbie gets from trying to cajole HTML and CSS to his bidding. Combined with a fair dose of platform and server agnosticism and with a strong commitment of Adobe to open source quite a bit of the technology stack. Good stuff.

If you like to learn by doing, then this is the book for you. They take you through just about every part of Flex and leave the details to the reference manuals. Be forewarned though, doing all the lessons could take at least 30 -40 hours. So if you're low on time, this is not the book for you.
I've also used this book as a reference, but am waiting for something better to be published. I know O'Reilly and Manning are coming out with new books soon.

I found this book very helpful with great examples that allow you to absorb the concepts and see them in action.

Adobe Flex 3 Training from the source is a good book for beginners and has something that advance user could use. I am not a fan of tech books, but this does not read like one. The information is solid and covers a breath of knowledge. The authors use a grocery store website as their example. The design of the website is not inspiring, but this is a manual about programming not design. I found that the code is readable and the examples are focused. This is helpful when I am looking for examples for a perticular purpose. The index is well done so my searches are quick. The length is a little overwelming, but it is no differnt then any other tech book. I gave it four out of five stars.

I found this book very easy to digest. It covers all necessary ground with very good examples so that could get you up to speed in a week. Book suggests 40+ hours. But, It even took me less than that.