Server Side Flash 5: Scripts, Databases, and Dynamic Development [With CDROM]

By William B. Sanders

Server-Side Flash: Scripts, Databases, and Dynamic Development fills an important gap in the Flash book market. With the emergence of e-commerce, no Web site is complete without a back end because the back end is the virtual sales connection. Likewise, complex games are dependent on access to huge sets of data that can be sent in small packages, but getting them in and out of Flash requires knowing how the data can be generated in Flash, how it can be sent out to the servers and how it gets information back from the servers and integrates it into the ongoing game. While every book on Flash recognizes this new capacity to some extent, none of them have really showed developers how to get the data into and out of Flash and use it effectively. Server-Side Flash gives developers the tools to fully utilize Flash's capacity to communicate with the server side of the Web. PHP/MySQL have over half a million users, ASP has at least as many, and just about every professional Web page now contains at least some JavaScript. Find out how Flash communicates with these other languages and servers with coverage of the use of Macromedia's powerful database Flash product, Generator, and put its use in context with other Flash database techniques and applications.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764535986
• ISBN13: 9780764535987
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Wiley Publishing
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Terrific and easy to understand. Crystal Clear!

This is an excellent book to get your feet wet with server side scripting for Macromedia's Flash. It's very easy to read, straight ahead. They don't assume you're an expert, so on that level, I suppose it's a great introductory book. The examples are practical. They do something that I particularly like in tutorial type books. They keep it simple, let you get the basic idea of what's going on and then you can take it from there. Many of the tutorials I've read on Flashkit or We're Here Forums (many of them excellent) assume that you know too much or worse, seem to want to flaunt their expertise with a very disingenuous attempt at helping the "student". Anyway, it appears that way when there are so many steps in a lesson that you lose track of what your basic goal is. Server Side Flash gives you a great introduction to Perl Script, ASP, XML and PHP MySQL so that you can decide for yourself which flavor you wish to delve into deeper.If I have any complaints at all, it would be that there's not an official website for the book. Not that I know of anyway. I went to flashcore.com, where one of the authors either writes or "used to" write, but there's not a mention of the book anywhere. Other than that, it really is a great book that will teach you the how to of server side flash and do it in a way that's easy to retain.

Very Specific, extrememly helpful

When I found this book, it was like discovering the missing link for my programming library. Thie book is not for web-design beginners, Flash newbies, or non-scripters. It has some paint-by-the numbers introductions to each technology, but the book's true value is the clear explanations of how to pass information from Flash to middleware and back. If you already know ActionScript ans some ASP/PHP, then grab this book and you can say goodbye to hours annoying guesswork in your coding. It blows away the Freinds of Ed books in it's precision. You just get info, not some designer's cutesy stab at technical writing. Top notch.

Highly Useful Book

I bought this book not knowing what to expect, the description promised quite a bit of know-how was contained within. Pleased to say it was well worth it. Prior to getting this book, I'd gotten good with ActionScript and JavaScript but to hook Flash up with any back-end scripting for my clients I've always been calling other people to consult and half the time had to just go with HTML instead. I always had a fear of any of those 3-letter languages (CGI/ASP/PHP) since the few books I'd gotten on them were way to heavy on programming theory and usually lacking on real world examples, and definitely never had an example of how to connect those things to Flash! There's a good sampling of how to connect Flash to everything here, and working through the examples let me finally understand many concepts that previously had been just out of my grasp. You won't become a master database programmer, but so what, this is a Flash integration book, and if I was doing nothing but databases all day I'd be bored out of my mind. Flash is about mixing great visuals with programming and Server Side Flash has filled in a lot of the missing pieces in my Flash and programming knowledge-base.

Serious Development Tool

I don't think there's anyone out there who will read this book and not come away having learned SOMETHING they didn't know about integrating Flash with the server scripting languages, and doing all the things you hear that you can do with Flash but no one ever tells you specifically how. There's plenty of reusable code for setting cookies and sending emails and storing Flash data in a database for creating dynamic Flash movies. This book definitely isn't meant to teach Actionscript or Flash basics, which is good since it seems there's about 1,000 of those books that came out this year. At least here there's an opportunity here to learn something NEW and unique about pushing the limits of what is possible with Flash, with serious working examples.Since the book does a good job of replacing about 5 other books you might need to buy, it's not a 'page-turner' where you can jump right in at any point. The information is dense but clearly presented so I had to make an effort to read and try all the examples and not just skim pages like in other books where there's way too many pictures and not enough solid information. Definitely not the case here. I found a lot of tips and tricks throughout as well about Flash and troubleshooting issues that are clearly the product of real world experience on the part of the authors. I'd rate it a "must-have" for any serious Flash developer's library, especially if you do work for a variety of clients that seem to all be running different hosting setups or have a preference for different languages ala PHP/ASP/Perl, and need to use Flash for more than just animation.

Great Book

Most books have very little about using the backend with Flash, but this book brings it all home. I've read several other books on Flash, and while some have some material on using Flash with servers and server side elements, none of them go into the depth and breadth as this one. First, it gives client-side users an excellent introduction to the server side, and it does so in a clear and practical manner. Second, it provides good introductions to several different server-side languages (CGI/Perl, PHP and ASP) and how they work with Flash. It is clearly an introduction to server-side languages and does a good job doing that with lots of examples that work.I suppose you could go buy a half dozen other books on server-side languages and a book on ActionScript, but I don't see the point. The book is not an introduction to ActionScript and Flash. It simply shows how to use Flash and ActionScript to set up and use server-side languages, and as far as I'm concerned it does a better job than those books written by committees or re-writes of the Macromedia AcitonScript manual. So, if you want to get a great introduction to and experience using Flash with backends, this book is the place to start. It also has the best explanation of how to use XML with Flash I've seen along with in-depth discussions of other little-known facets of Flash. It also comes with free hosting service for learning this stuff.