The intended audience is for readers who "...have some previous experience developing in Actionscript...", and that "Some familiarity with the Flash or Flex authoring environments...".
SO - why do we get a whole chapter dedicated to a section on using Flex, but assumes that the reader already knows the Flash IDE?
Furthermore, why is there a whole chapter on coding standards and practices?
These are just two of the wastes of paper, therefore MY MONEY before getting down to the OOP concepts.
If you do buy, watch out for the errata, and the publishers (Friends of Ed) have errors on their reporting page, which is, possibly, the reason there is no corrections sheet for this book

Once we get to the OOP stage, there is a major dearth of answers to the question WHY? I'm a newcomer to true OOP, so this book is not a good way to delve into OOP.

Title: Object-Oriented Actionscript 3.0
Authors: Peter Elst, Sas Jacobs, and Todd Yard
Publisher: Friends of ED (July 23rd, 2007)
ISBN: 1590598458
[...]
I figured this book would be next logical step in learning actionscript. I will state this book is not for those who are just beginning actionscript as the depth will make your head spin. If you are just beginning AS I suggest you pick up the Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8 by Friend of Ed or head over LearnFlash to check out their Introduction to Actionscript 3.0 videos. The thing that I looked forward to most about this book is the OOP discussions. As a developer, I am always looking for a better explanation of a very important aspect of development.
The book is divided into five sections. The first section deals with OOP and Actionscript. It throws in a basic programming concepts and an introduction to Actionscript. Part two deals Flash OOP guidelines. It contains chapters dealing with best practices, planning, and project workflow. They decided to stick a Flex chapter in this section which seemed odd to me. Part three deals with the core OOP concepts such as encapsulation, classes, inheritance, Polymorphism, interfaces, and a section on design patterns. Part four deals with building and extending dynamic frameworks. They talk about manager classes, UI widgets, and OOP animation/effects. The final part deals with data integration. The authors provide details on exchanging data between components, communication with the browser, and various forms of server communication (XML and web Services. The book concludes with an example of a slideshow engine.
The layout is very reminiscent of other books in this series. I wish they would have found a better way to make the code examples stand out from the other text a little better. It would have broken up the monotony. I think the book could have used more color.
What I liked about the book
I thought the authors did a great job of covering OOP concepts. Part three really provides a terrific explanation of the foundation and core fundamentals. I recommend reading part three if you need a refresher on the topic. If you don't get lost in the rhetoric then the case studies are excellent. The Slideshow engine in the final part really brings together the concepts discussed throughout the whole book. I enjoyed the coverage of Flex 2 and its capabilities.
What I didn't like about the book
I did not care for the way the code examples were presented at all. In most cases, it made the book hard to follow and many times I would have to reread the paragraph before the code just to make sense of what they were trying to relay to the reader. I think some of the chapters were very confusing and fuzzy on the topic at hand. I am sure the manager classes discussed in part four are integral part of AS 3.0, but I felt like I was running up hill in quicksand. There are several topics in the book that would have been clearer if they had their own chapter. This being said it would have helped me master the codes examples a bit better if the explanation was a bit clearer. The examples would be easier to follow if they built upon each other as well. I enjoyed the Flex coverage, but it would have been great to have more material relating to Flash.
Conclusion
I don't think this is a horrible book by any means and if were organized clearly it would be a must read. I am hoping they come out with a foundation book on AS 3.0 which will benefit beginners and intermediates as well. If you are well schooled in AS than I imagine you will find this book helpful if you are not then you will be left scratching your head. Personally, I think it time back track and pick up on some things that I must have missed.

{[Jeff Smith]}

this book will help you to code more properly in actionscript,
to get the maximum of this book you must know actionscript 3 and basic object-oriented programming.
it is not an easy book, but if you will grasp all the concepts and implement them then you will be the perfect as3 programmer

I expected to see more coding techniques aside from just learning the newly structured AS 3.0. Much of the way Actionscript is coded is still done in the same way nestled in newly structured class files. And here is the new structure: package { import your library(s) class { some code } } all wrapped up in its own .as file. The SWF remains completely empty except for your class path hidden in the publish settings. And I'm still discovering this isn't the only way to organize your class files and paths. Just when I start to get comfortable with AS 2.0 and they go off and do something like this, and totally redeem themselves.

Some new concepts I noticed involve Manager Classes and Interfaces. I'll be sure to master those when I start my Ph.D.

The book had plenty of code to comb through which was great , moreover, it discussed a good number of practical examples. I liked that it focused on important topics and not just the title OOP AS 3.0. The book covers hot topics like Flex, XML frameworks, and web services. We all know when you mix AJAX and SOAP you don't get a good cleaning, instead you equip yourself with the coolest, latest, and greatest web thingy.

I felt like some of these AS files were rather bloated compared to what I'm used to seeing in AS 2.0. If you don't have your foundation of class file after class file established, then you won't be seeing any fast implementation any time soon. You sacrifice time for decoupled, yet less simple, reusable, and robust code that makes more efficient use of processing power - cuz, users pay attention to that kind of stuff. For instance, I thought I would incorporate the source files included with the book in developing a solution for displaying video on the website here at work. After an hour or so looking at the files and testing the result in the browser, there was no evidence of button control functionality. So, I went back to my AS 2.0 help and copied code for a video object, found the corresponding methods I needed under the netstream class, and a few moments later I had a streaming video player with complete functionality. Note to self, for small fast implementation projects refer back to AS 2.0 and for large scale multi-coder headaches apply AS 3.0.

Getting good exposure to AS 3.0 in prime examples really helped me transition to using it where I can find place. And what's great is that you get to see all of the code, not just a snippet shrouded by the author for his own purposes. Take a long peek at the gravity class. Admit it, you know it's what still makes Flash cool.

This book definitely isn't for someone wanting to learn "programming". You should have a good foundation in basic programming concepts - method, property, constructor, function, modifier, object, etc. If you've done any JAVA programming all you need is the API documentation and you're off and running in AS 3.0. The way books are written these days you can't find a "has everything" book, so you're definitely left wanting a little more. The book totals some 597 pages but if you take out the code and empty pages you're left with maybe 200 pages of explanation. As the number of books out there continues to climb, you may question the authority and quality of each volume.

This book is great for those who want to go to the next level of web programming - which is web application programming. You'll learn to program apps like Buzzword at Buzzword.com.

I have been jumping around this book for the last month or so and have found this book extremely useful. It does an excellent job at breaking up the OOP pieces into chunks that as a semi experienced programmer are very beneficial. If you have little to know OOP experience the first few sections of the book do a good job at bringing you quickly up to speed on the basics of OOP such as Encapsulation, Classes, and Abstraction. From there the book moves onto the pieces that allow you to build an OOP project. These pieces look at how best to develop and design the most commons pieces used when creating and building applications with AS3, such as how best to handle animations and effects. This was extremely helpful for me. I mostly use Adobe Flex to develop and design my applications and I was looking for a book that would help me to get a better understanding of the work flow and design patterns required to start building solid OOP applications in Flex. The section on animation and effects was extremely useful as I find myself wanting to reuse these bits of code most often.

I would highly recommend this book for any programmer who wants to get into AS3 with Flex or for a Flash developer who is looking to take their skill set to the next level with OOP programmer.