Rating: 
Summary: Not the best book that I've read on Actionscript...
Review: If you are serious about learning the basic principles of Actionscript, I recommend skipping this particular title - (sorry...)This was the first Actionscript book that I had ever purchased, and I found myself purchasing another Actionscript shortly thereafter. Don't get me wrong, for the few days I was learning things, but as soon as the actual coding begins, alot of the syntax explanation was simply not there leaving me with more questions than answers. Even the live example site documented in the book was kinda weak. I like the "Friends of Ed" titles but you can tell that this was an early work. The most important keys were missing, syntax and way that the Actionscript interpretor in the Flash Player works - pretty important subjects. Luckily, I found a more "definitive guide" (hint to the title) by Colin Moock that covered the language pretty fully and left me with more answers than questions!
Rating: 
Summary: user friendly
Review: If you were tought flash in a class and your teacher did not seem so confident on actions this IS the book you need. I am a college student and sometimes find the need for instructional books, this was by far a page turner, (for a book in its class, some of these instructional books i can't make 2 pages with out unintentionally taking a 5 minute nap) that tought me very well and now i am confident in action scripting. *5 stars*
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for beginners and non-gurus of Actionscripting
Review: It is by far, the BEST book I have ever read, regarding Flash 5 and Actionscripting. In fact, it is the best technicalbook I have ever read period. The book was very concise and easy to follow. The decomposition of the stun:design website was excellent and the tutorials were very clear and well put together. The accompanying website is great and is the icing on the cake. I have indeed become a fan of your
books.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for beginners and non-gurus of Actionscripting
Review: It is by far, the BEST book I have ever read, regarding Flash 5 and Actionscripting. In fact, it is the best technicalbook I have ever read period. The book was very concise and easy to follow. The decomposition of the stun:design website was excellent and the tutorials were very clear and well put together. The accompanying website is great and is the icing on the cake. I have indeed become a fan of your
books.
Rating: 
Summary: Errors and Verbosity
Review: The overall design of the book is good, taking the reader through planning a programme, navigating using a timeline and more complex and elegant ways of constructing the navigation of a Flash website. Following this, basic programming concepts such as variables, conditional commands and loops are introduced. In later chapters, important design elements such as preloaders and caches are treated, using modular code is examined, and finally a complete website, including a space invaders game, is developed. There is also a chapter on sound. So, the basic buidling blocks for a good book are present. However, this structure is very badly implemented. I assume that programming requires some intelligence. If you think it doesn't, my comments are not directed at you. On the assumption that programming requires intelligence, I expect to have concepts introduced and explained to me clearly, precisely and concisely, with working examples and exercises for coding my own programmes. Foundation Actionscript fails utterly by these criteria. Programming concepts are introduced painstakingly, but there are so many analogies and so much semi-repetition that the intended clarity is obscured, and precision and conciseness are completely absent. The method of presentation makes simple ideas very difficult to follow. There is also a problem with the way the reader is introduced to the actionscript editor in Flash. The author's intention is to lead the reader slowly into Expert Mode in the editor, by starting in Normal Mode and gradually moving to Expert Mode. In the end, this method turns out to be simply confusing. The examples used, which would be very easy to code in Expert Mode, turn out to be very difficult to code in Normal Mode because of the constant revisions that need to be made to the code semi-generated by Flash in Normal Mode. Instead of explaining things in painful detail at every step of the coding process, even for code only two or three lines long, it would be much easier to follow if the author had introduced the entire code in Expert Mode and then given an explanation afterwards. In trying to follow the author's explanations, I found my eyes glazing over and had to read everything two or three times to understand what was supposed to be going on, and this is for very simple concepts, remember. Further to these difficulties, there is the problem, which is almost omnipresent these days with respect to computer books and which should shame the publishers, that there are errors in coding and the sample files in the download do not match the instructions and explanations that appear in the text. Finally, the method of instruction leaves, in the end, much to be desired. At the beginning of the book, examples are worked through step by step, and the reader can type in the code, following the text, and actually produce a functional Flash movie using actionscript. Later on, the author abandons this method of instruction, in favour of presenting a Flash movie for the reader's consideration and then just commenting on how it works. Having read the explanations of the code, without having been shown how to build it, is the reader supposed to come away actually being able to write his own scripts? Programming is a skill, and skills are learned by doing. The author provides far too little opportunity for the reader to practise what is being presented. Lest the reader think I am an expert programmer being unduly harsh on a book for beginners, I should note that I am beginner programmer, but one who is not stupid. I am familiar with concepts of logic, which I have taught at university level, but that is all. Overall, I can give this book but a poor recommendation. It is, however, a laudable attempt to move away from books on programming that merely focus on aspects of the language, rather than on what it is possible to do with them. I suppose it's possible to learn actionscript from the book. I suppose I have. However, you'll have to plow through screeds of boring and inaccurate material two or three times before you get the idea.
Rating:
Summary: Great for artists, not programmers
Review: This book is an excellent foundation for creatives who wnat to delve into more complex flash projects, but lack the programming background of a developer. It starts off at the very basics, of how and why things work. This is very important if you want to carry your knowledge of coding on to a variety of other applications because you will retain concepts that will make it easier to learn other programming languages like Lingo, javacript, etc. We all know Falsh won't be around forever, so its important to be flexible. If you are new to Flash, or just want to improve your work and save time with actionscript, this book is the best in its class, with many other publications to move forward to afterwards. You can't beat the price either.
Rating:
Summary: A great way to learn action scripting
Review: This book is excellent, as is the before it in the series "Foundation Flash 5". The author, Sham Bhangal, takes his explanations of actionscripting a bit further than other authors I have read. Like other books, Foundation Actionscript has projects with examples of the scripting and explains what the script means, but this book also explains the thought processes and logic behind the writing of the code! The book does a good job of teaching the reader to take a problem and break it down into many smaller problems. In my opinion this makes Foundation Actionscripint superior to other books I have read on this subject. I highly recommend this book especially if you are new to object oriented programming. If you are new to Flash you should read Foundation Flash 5 (or some other book on the basics) first.
Rating:
Summary: A great way to learn action scripting
Review: This book is excellent, as is the before it in the series "Foundation Flash 5". The author, Sham Bhangal, takes his explanations of actionscripting a bit further than other authors I have read. Like other books, Foundation Actionscript has projects with examples of the scripting and explains what the script means, but this book also explains the thought processes and logic behind the writing of the code! The book does a good job of teaching the reader to take a problem and break it down into many smaller problems. In my opinion this makes Foundation Actionscripint superior to other books I have read on this subject. I highly recommend this book especially if you are new to object oriented programming. If you are new to Flash you should read Foundation Flash 5 (or some other book on the basics) first.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book
Review: This book is good from chapter 1-6 where Sham takes the time to explain the how and why of it all with lots of input and hands on work. Chapter 7 and 8 are a bit harder, as it's just look at code and see explanations..... thats a bit of a dissapointment. Then chapters 9 and on are usefull. Over all I like this book .
Rating:
Summary: Thank God for designer to designer!
Review: This book will help lay the groundwork to understanding a very fun and exciting language. It is the perfect bridge for the intermediate Flash user who wants to begin to get to the meat of the program. Remember Wrox books? Sham, the author-God Bless him, has written this book, one of five others in the series..., not only allows you to completely follow along, but you'll also no longer feel like an idiot halfway through the book before you give up. Sham gives you all the detail you can handle with all the organization that will allow you to really learn Actionscript. You will literally become fascinated with the possibilities. Have fun with this book.
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