Getting Started with AS3

From Interactivity

By Eric Socolofsky
Feb. 7, 2008


So you want to learn AS3, huh? here's some links to get you going. start with the earliest links and work thru em chronologically.

http://del.icio.us/ericsoco

some really useful ones are senocular's "Beginners Guide" and tip-a-day. skip the first chunk of this first link, as it's focused on command-line compiling. http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/as3withmxmlc/

http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?s=5982418b6efbf4ccb5698013d006b387&t=223798

also really important to read is grant skinner's notes on resource management, the GC, weak references, etc. read all the "Articles in this series": http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2006/06/as3_resource_ma.html

in general, i HIGHLY recommend you almost always use weak references for your event listeners, like this: someObj.addEventListener(someEventName, someHandler, false, 0, true); that's explained in grant skinner's articles. he has some other good ones in there as well.

you can also buy colin moock's EAS3 book. i haven't used it much, as i learned AS3 before it came out, but i've read a couple chapters and per colin's usual, they're very well-written and in-depth. http://www.amazon.com/Essential-ActionScript-3-0/dp/0596526946

oh, one last thing -- you can get a 90-day free trial of Flex Builder 3, and afaik you can continue to reinstall it as often as needed. that will probably change once they launch the commercial version, but you can actually get that free with a school id. free! incredible.