Hi,
I would like to become skilled developing applications in Flash. What is more, I would like to grasp a better understanding (doing instead of only reading) of the Flash ecosystem and their real potential to apply that knowledge in my own projects.
Which resources (books, tutorials, exercises, etc) do you recommend to learn in depth Flash and ActionScript?
Thank you.
If what you want is to become an app developer, I highly recommend starting with "Essential ActionScript 3.0" (published by O'Reilly) as a primary reference. Work through the early examples just to get a feel for how AS coding "works", and then just Build Something. Meaning, decide on something you'd like to build in Flash/AS, and then just start coding, using the aforementioned book and whatever you can find online as references and to answer the myriad questions that will pop up along the way.
It's MUCH easier to learn Actionscript/Flash in terms of concrete problems than in terms of generalized problems; you'll find yourself recognizing a lot of things that seem somewhat idiosyncratic popping up repeatedly.
It helps a lot if you tell a bit more about your background. Do you have experience from other programming languages?
The "Essential Actionscript" 2 & 3 are supposed to be good (i haven't read them myself) for somebody starting with Actionscript. For object oriented programming (oop) "Object Oriented programming with Flash 8" was a pretty good book, but as it's as2 you'll probably want to take a look at the as3 version (which i haven't read). For more advanced design patterns both "Advanced Actionscript 3 with Design Patterns" and "Actionscript 3.0 Design Patterns" are pretty good. Of these two i prefer the first one but they both have a differnt approach so you might want to look at both.
If design patterns are new to you though these books won't give you much. Just look at something and try to create it. Fortunately you know everything, you just have to plug in to your remote brain through google ;)
For your daily RSS dose subscribe check out feeds.adobe.com. The Flash feeds here will give you a lot of small tips here and there + give inspiration for new experiments.
Learning Actionscript 3.0 by Rick Shupe, http://www.learningactionscript3.com/ is considered a good book and Actionscript 3.0 Animation by Keith Peters.
Yeah, I've done some coding in AS3 and Flash and a little in Flex too. But I can't say that I'm an expert. How good should you be before applying for a actionscript job? I'm proficient in another OO languages (.NET, C#, VB.NET, mostly) and have been working with these. What is the pass sign for what you are able to develop in AS3 and Flash?
I just love animations, and making things move!