Competent code but poorly explained.

There is much talk here about the good and bad points of this book. Strangley, everyone either loves it or hates it when the truth is that it's not good enough to love nor bad enough to hate. The authors know exactly what they are talking about, there's no doubt. But I think therein lies the problem because the explanation of the code examples is almost non-existent. So, if you are looking to learn the principles of connecting Flash to a data-base, then this isn't for you. The examples in this book are of excellent quality but, unless they are EXACTLY what you're looking for, customising them may prove tricky without an explanation of what each piece of code does. Other problems include frequent typos in the book and the constant switching from asp.net to asp and from SQL to Access. In fairness to the authors, their code example on parsing an XML document took my thinking in a direction that I would never before have considered but, in order to understand it, I had to go out and buy "The Flash 8 Bible"! So, my final word is, this book is not suitable as a single resource to learn the subject, but the examples are well rounded and the approach sound. To avoid disappointment, order it alongside a book that will help you to understand the principles laid out in the code examples (The Flash 8 Bible is a good start because its chapter on parsing an XML document is a simplified - and fully explained - version of the one in this book).

Other Reviews

• Competent code but poorly explained.
• I love this book
• Fantastic and Easy to Follow Examples
• Useful Techniques
• Very little of Flash