H1DD3N.R350URC3 » Books http://blog.hexagonstar.com turn-based glory and pixel pleasure Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:45:06 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Learn some patterns – Advanced ActionScript 3.0 with Design Patterns http://blog.hexagonstar.com/learn-some-patterns-advanced-actionscript-30-with-design-patterns/ http://blog.hexagonstar.com/learn-some-patterns-advanced-actionscript-30-with-design-patterns/#comments Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:16:39 +0000 sascha http://blog.hexagonstar.com/learn-some-patterns-advanced-actionscript-30-with-design-patterns/ I’ve been reading this book by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson since yesterday and thought I’d loose a couple of words about it …
The book starts with a chapter about application design where it explains how to go through the analysis-, design- , implementation and testing phase. It introduces how to utilize Use Case- and Class Diagrams and then gives a lesson on how to use FlexUnit for unit testing. In the second chapter is a good explanation about why and how to use Interfaces (instead of Inheritance) and after that it goes into detail with teaching nine of the more common Design Patterns, namely MVC, Singleton, Factory/Template Method, Proxy, Iterator, Composite, Decorator, Command, Memento and State. In part 3 of the book you’ll find in-depth information about AS 3.0 features like Events, data IO, E4X and Regular Expressions.

[ad#ad_content]So how good is this book? If you are familiar with ActionScript 2 or 3 this is a good book which is easy to understand and to follow most time. If you’re rather new to AS it might be more difficult, not only because of the difficulty to understand OOP but also because many of the code listings in the book have errors. Somebody who is experienced with ActionScript will usually notice the mistakes and correct them while typing but somebody without enough knowledge will probably curse about why the examples per se don’t run.
Many of the Pattern lessons go into deeper detail than other Pattern books I’ve read which is a plus! For example in the Command Pattern they not just tell that this Pattern can be used to code Undo/Redo functionality, it also shows how to do so. On the other hand some of the code listing are a bit boring. Who wants to type that dull clock application again for learning the MVC pattern?! I think I saw it before in EAS2.0. But it might be just me waiting for the day where such books are tailored for Game Programmers! ;)
Personally I would have welcome it if the design process stuff had received more attention by being more deep and for example explaining sequence diagrams.
During the code examples some classes are utilized that are part of the book and can be downloaded on the web, or let’s say they could be downloaded if the book’s code site were available already.
Apart from these small slips (from which the code incorrectness weights most IMO) I would say this is a decent book that has the ability to teach Patterns where other books were either too advanced or too simple for this topic.

]]> http://blog.hexagonstar.com/learn-some-patterns-advanced-actionscript-30-with-design-patterns/feed/ 2 Understanding Interfaces and Polymorphism http://blog.hexagonstar.com/understanding-interfaces-and-polymorphism/ http://blog.hexagonstar.com/understanding-interfaces-and-polymorphism/#comments Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:12:58 +0000 sascha http://blog.hexagonstar.com/understanding-interfaces-and-polymorphism/ I’ve been using Interfaces a couples of time now when needed but I never fully understood those down-sized Class construct wannabes. I knew they are useful when it is required to have an universal type for different objects but I haven’t fully grasped to scope why they are so useful otherwise. Also the fact that they can’t contain properties and only public method declarations confused me.

[ad#ad_content]This has changed instantly today when I read a sample eBook chapter of Joey Lott’s Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns on Adobe Labs new Digital Editions Service , a book that I actually ordered already a couple of days ago (takes a bit to ship to Japan though).

What can I say? This small chapter explains it extremely easy and logically. I’ve read EAS 2.0 and Head First but this sample chapter made me getting it for the first time really! It also explains about the difference of Abstract Classes and Interfaces, something that has not been mentioned in any other ActionScript book I’ve read so far.
Full respect to the author! If the rest of the book is of similar quality and clarity I shall be damned if I will not be an OOP Pattern Master in near future!

On a side note, the sample books are being downloaded of what looks like an Apollo app. I’m not sure how far this is related to Apollo but it works like a standalone eBook reader is downloaded and installed and sample chapters open in it.

]]> http://blog.hexagonstar.com/understanding-interfaces-and-polymorphism/feed/ 2 Waiting for AS 3.0 Books http://blog.hexagonstar.com/waiting-for-as-30-books/ http://blog.hexagonstar.com/waiting-for-as-30-books/#comments Mon, 16 Oct 2006 08:30:01 +0000 sascha http://blog.hexagonstar.com/waiting-for-as-30-books/ A couple of days ago the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook has been published. Obviously it’s a Must-Have but so far I resisted to buy it, waiting for some User Reviews on Amazon. Anyone else got it already? I would be interested in if many new stuff is covered or if it’s just a AS3.0 fitted version of the older AS Cookbook (though I doubt that when I read the authors names).

Then there is the highly anticipated Flex 2 book which is due for the 1. quarter next year and so it still takes a while until then. Another book I’m looking forward to is Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns, also by Joey Lott, especially because I still haven’t fully grasped patterns. Maybe this will help.

]]> http://blog.hexagonstar.com/waiting-for-as-30-books/feed/ 4 640 Kilobyte ought to be enough for anybody http://blog.hexagonstar.com/640-kilobyte-ought-to-be-enough/ http://blog.hexagonstar.com/640-kilobyte-ought-to-be-enough/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2004 19:33:20 +0000 sascha http://blog.hexagonstar.com/?p=44

… was a quote from Bill Gates from 1981 according to the book Computers – An Illustrated History from Christian Wurster which I had a sneak look into some days ago in a well sorted book shop and which her majesty now surprisingly presented me as a birthday gift.

This book covers the whole history of computers from the very beginning when they filled a whole hall and were based on relay’s to current computer high tech while leading though the chapters for scientific and military computers, mainframe computers, minicomputers, then microcomputers and to desktop computers.

It features a great amount of photo material and quotes from people who used the computers in their popular times.

I already love this book and think it should belong into the collection of everyone who dig old computer nostalgia.

Some readers on Amazon gave it a negative review and mentioned that there are incorrect facts in the book and that the pictures are of bad quality and showing jpg artefacts. Hell yea that might be true to some degree, I’ve found one flaw that says to a photo that the machine is a Atari 800 XL but actually it is a Atari 800 (I have to know! The Atari 600 XL was my first computer). And most of the photo material can’t be complained about.

This is truly decent computer porn for geeks and I’m sure the next big ‘electronic era’ that comes will be the era of the robots!

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