Design Patterns in ActionScript

July 3rd, 2008 Chris Griffith

During our discussion at last night’s meeting, I mentioned that there were two books specifically written on using Design Patterns in ActionScript. The first was Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson. This is a great starter book for anyone interested in applying design patterns to their development. The other is ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns, by William B. Sanders and Chandima Cumaranatunge. This one is a much deeper look into design patterns. So, if you have actually finished reading EAS3.0 by Moock, then you are ready to tackle either one of these.

A third book that I also recommend is in the Head First series, Head First: Design Patterns. Although the examples are written JAVA, it is fairly easy to translate the examples to ActionScript. If you have not had a chance to read one of the Head First series of books, be warned they are unlike any book you have read. 

Both Head First: Design Patterns and ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns are O’Reilly books, so you can use the User Group discount. 


Flex Framework Showdown

February 13th, 2008 admin

A great presentation by Luke Bayes and Ali Mills (from such projects as ASUnit and and ProjectSprouts), discussing a handful of the available Flex Frameworks and which they’ve found to be the best. If you’re unfamiliar with Frameworks for flex or why you’d want to use one, spend a little time researching Cairngorm and PureMVC (two of their favorites) before watching the presentation. There’s a great series of articles introducing Cairngorm HERE, and you can read up on PureMVC HERE. When you feel comfortable with the idea of what a framework is and why you’d want to use one, then it’s time to watch these guys tear into some of the best options and nail down the pro’s and con’s of each! CLICK ME TO LAUNCH THE PRESENTATION!


Runtime Enforcement of Abstract Classes in AS3

January 11th, 2008 Kyle

Josh Tynjala over at ZeuseLabs wrote a great article on creating Abstract Classes in AS3.

Check it out here: Astract Classes in AS3