[.ca] Reality J2EE: Architecting for Macromedia Flash MX (ISBN 0321158849)

dive into realityof a pro project:
Brilliant idea to base this book on a real project. By reading it, you get a chance to become in turn architect, designer,developer ! A book to eat if you consider Flash as a professional client tiers.

Well done Book:
You learn from this book are, * How to integrate the rich-client capabilities of Flash MX, and the real-time communication capabilities of Flash Communication server MX, with an enterprise Java application. * A book covers an examles to understand the integration of Flash and J2EE, unit testing ASUnit and JUnit and architectural refactoring, featuring validation and real-time data integration using Flash Remoting. * It gives you the best practice of J2EE design pattern in Flash and J2EE integration. * It's account management module exploring the integration of Flash MX with EJB using both Macromedia JRun 4.0 and JBoss. * If you are a Flash developer,I expect you will learn a great deal that will improve your ActionScript skills. You will learn about pattern-driven architecture,OOD, refactoring and unit testing. * Rich client technology can be deployed on mobile phone, handheld device, Sony Play Station 2 or interactive digital TV.

Verbal Diarrhea:
On and on it goes. Every trifling detail of the boring "real world" projects. If you work in the industry it will remind you of work too much. It doesn't go into Web Service Connectors with Flash MX 2004 Professional either, so buy something else that does.

Not for ActionScript 2.0, MX Pro 2004 users.:
This book says that it's meant for experienced senior J2EE developers, it bascially goes on and on about what a typical XP project is like. Too many dialogs explaining what different patterns are, and why we should use it, and why testing is good. Goes over MVC, Business Delegate, etc, but not thorough enough. People working with J2EE would already have that knowledge. And of course being from "Macromedia Press" this book mentions a lot of Macromedia's products, ie JRun. Overall it is a decent book, but don't buy it if you're expecting to learn MX 2004/Actionscript 2.0 code.

Excellent Book:
This book is very well done. The author teaches you not only how to combine Flash and J2EE to make dynamic web sites, but he also teaches you some best practices in the process. You will learn how to use Flash Remoting to connect to a Java backend and you will learn how to design, develop and unit test the whole thing. Using extreme programming techniques, great emphasis is made on properly unit testing each example. This is a sign that the author is a true veteran developer. I emailed the author with a few questions and received an immediate and enthusiastic response. Top notch the whole way around. Highly recommended.