The Flash 8 ActionScript Bible by Robert Reinhardt and
Joey Lott is relevant to this course because it will
help you create Flash applications. It is a
comprehensive guide that will help anyone learn the
latest version of ActionScript. I think that this book
would make a good textbook if the student wants to
focus on improving their knowledge of Flash. However,
because each student can focus on whichever program
they want, it would be better to list this as a good
resource or optional text. It covers ActionScript
expressions, functions, and variables, and it provides
details about working with numbers, arrays, and
strings. This book would be useful to anyone who wants
to learn ActionScript or improve their skills. It
provides detailed instructions and step-by-step
tutorials.
Core PHP Programming by Leon Atkinson with Zeev Suraski
is also relevant to this course. The third edition full
covers PHP 5, and it is concise, thorough, and well-
organized. In terms of programming with PHP, it
discusses topics such as variables, operators,
expressions, control statements, functions, arrays,
classes, and objects. Throughout, it includes
information on networking, data structures, regular
expressions, math, configuration, graphics, MySQL, XML,
algorithms, and debugging. If the student wishes to
learn more about PHP or focus on PHP throughout this
course, I feel that this would make a good textbook.
Otherwise, it seems to be a good resource or optional
text.
Flash 8: Graphics, Animation and Interactivity by James
L. Mohler seems as though it would be a good book with
which to learn Flash. The description says that the
book and the included CD provide step-by-step
explanations, exercises designed to get users up to
speed, exercises which demonstrate the newest features
of Flash 8, and examples that show some more complex
elements of the software. It also included information
about ActionScript; however, it does not seem to go
into as much detail about ActionScript as the Flash 8
ActionScript Bible did. Therefore, this book would be a
good resource or optional text to gain an understanding
of how Flash works and to see how it works, as well. It
would not make a very good textbook, but it would be
good for some background reading.