Should I learn flash?

I'm in the first year of my degree and don't really have to spend much time studying because I've done most of it before. We learn the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, Photoshop etc but it's not specific enough to get a decent job with.
I want to focus my attention (and money) on learning one main thing and mastering it but aren't sure which to go for. I like using flash and love all of it's capabilites but also realise how important it could be to maybe master photoshop and look at digital art type stuff.
Or maybe learn CSS or something like that.
I want to maybe go in to website design, but am also interested in many other things. I mean, even if I do go in to web design, should I learn flash or should I focus my attention on photoshop and HTML?
I'm not really an arty type, I don't want to just be a programmer I want to at least do some design.
I want to look at how easy things are to learn, how fun it would be, if it would be useful in a few years and also the demand for it.
Thoughts?
Cheers!!

It really depends on what you want to do mainly when you start your career.
Personally, I wanted to learn everything to be as valuable as possible in not only a corporate setting, but also personal projects.
I attended Art Institute for Web Development and took classes on all the most popular platforms and applications. The list includes...
XHTML/CSS
Photoshop
Flash
Dreamweaver
AS 3.0
PHP/MySQL
On top of that, we learned about things like Color Theory, Design Theory and other Web Dev concepts.
In the grand scheme of things though, what I learned in school is only a fraction of what I've learned once I graduated and started working. I continue to learn things everyday, it is pretty much endless.
So getting to your question about Flash...
I think it is a valuable skill set to have. I wouldn't stop at Flash though. You still need basic knowledge, if not, advanced knowledge of XHTML/CSS and PHP/MySQL because your Flash projects will most likely require those technologies to implement in real world applications.
It's a crazy journey to say the least and every day, things get crazier with technology evolving so quickly.
The topics I outlined above are things you want to have a strong foundation in.
From there you can really focus on what type of work you want to do. I pretty much do a little bit of everything but like you are wondering, it does limit how far you can master one particular thing. But with time, I believe you can master most if not all of the topics.
Hope that helps.
Dey

Similar Messages

Flash Video,What should I learn?

Do I need to know how to design to do Flash Video? I am not
artist can do a li photoshop.I would like the part in putting
Videos up,is there a job market out there for me.

and what exactly do you want to learn about flash video?
Flash video is nothing else then a format with a few more
capabilities.. Maybe you should check out Flash 8 Video (Friends of
ED)
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=159059651X
or if you can wait, try to get this one:
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=159059956X

New to programming. Should I use Flash Builder 4.6 to create CRUD interface to MySQL?

Having just acquired Creative Cloud subscription, I see that I have access to Flash Builder 4.6 Premium. I haven't figured out yet if I will eventually have access to Flash Builder 4.6 for PHP when / if it is released.
I am relatively new to programming. I want to create a desktop application, perhaps a web application, to manage a MySQL database. I am not, at this time, concerned with mobile applications. I'm primarily interested in just managing the MySQL data -- CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations.
Hopefully I've provided enough context. My question concerns whether learning Flash Builder 4.6 and Flex programming is an appropriate choice. Alternatively, I could just focus on learning basic PHP programming or perhaps learning to use one of the PHP frameworks (CakePHP, CodeIgniter, or Zend). It seems like learning these frameworks will take time as well, so I don't know where I should begin.
I would really value your perspective. Are the Flash Builder related technologies here to stay? Is Flash Builder primarily suitable for mobile applications (rather than desktop or web)? Would it be more or less difficult to learn Flash Builder and Flex than PHP and one of the PHP frameworks with a view to building a MySQL CRUD application?
Thank you, so very much -- for your time and expertise.
Kevin

Kevin,
I am a big fan of Flash Builder. You can build great desktop web applications as well desktop applications that run on AIR (installs locally to the desktop).
I found it easier to pick up Flex (now Flash Builder) primarily due to the resources (Learn Flex in a week video tutorials http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining.html ) as well as a big developer community that posts a lot of how to's and walk throughs. In my personal opinion, I think the power of Flash Builder/Flex framework is the ability to create what traditionally was seen as desktop apps within your web browser. If you're looking to create a basic crud interface, skipping Flash Builder and just doing it in PHP may be the way to go. If you're looking to add visualizations (ie graphs, charts) or highly interactive user interface to it then Flash Builder would be a good way to go (though keep in mind that you will still need PHP (or some other server side application layer like coldfusion) to interface with your mysql database but Flash Builder's dataservices creates some sample php classes for you to handle CRUD using Zend). There's lots of amazing things you can do with Flash Builder. I'd recommend checking out some of the samples from Tour de Flex to get a sense of what can be done with Flash Builder.
A couple of notes though - You can build and package native mobile apps with Flash Builder but if you're looking to create web apps for devices like iphone and ipads, Flash Builder isn't the solution since it compiles web based apps to Flash and we all know how idevices don't play nicely with Flash.

Learning Flash AND swing

hi.....do u think Flash > Applet AND VB.NET> Swing ?
I have little knowledge on Applet AND Swing......but I think Flash and VB.Net has exceeded and captured the market of Applet and Swing . Now a days most sites are using Flash for interactivity and VB for interface. do u think learning Flash and VB.NET would be worthy ? or should i update my knowledge on Applet and Swing ? One more bad thing regarding swing is , the code becomes bulky to get a simple interface .
i have one more doubt,......suppose i made a interface in VB.NET ( front end ) , can i run java code in back end ?
plz let me know what should i emphasis ?
thanks

It all depends on your current situation. Are you employed in IT? If so, what technologies is your employer using now. What technologies do they see themselves using next year? In 5 years?
What skills do you have now? Are you proficient in any technologies? Think about whether you want to be a jack-of-all-trades or very proficient in a smaller number of technologies. Are your current skills saleable to an employer? Should you improve your current skills or start learning new skills?
Hey, for a forum answer, I've certainly typed a lot of question marks!

Newb-Learning Flash

I am a TOTAL NEWB to Flash and I'm NOT a programmer (I only
know some html). I'm gonna attempt to teach myself. I bought a book
on ActionScript for non-programmers. My question is should I learn
the graphics/animation part first and then attempt the
actionscript/interactivity stuff or try to do both simultaneously?
I am a previous user of the old Adobe LiveMotion which was SO EASY
and really didn't require much previous knowledge of action
scripting or animation. I need to get up and running with this FAST
and if I can do it without taking some long, drawn-out class at the
local tech school, I would prefer that. I'd appreciate some good
direction before I start torturing myself.

Thanks for replying. I first bough Flash MX Actionscript. But
I have Flash CS3 Pro. So it exchanged it for Flash CS3 Pro Bible.
It's one THICK BOOK! But have already created a simple animated
logo with a link to a website and an email button. I kinda just
jumped around the book to learn to do what I needed for this first
attempt. The actionscript stuff is a real pain, but I think I will
just have to get comfortable with it to be able to do what my boss
expects me to do. But I do plant to work through the book page by
page. I would like to eventually create nice intros to websites and
maybe some Flash navigation. My boss may have other ideas for me
that I'm not aware of. I'm thinking it will take a good 6 months to
do some cool stuff. What was your learning curve like?

Learn Flash or re-learn Director

I used to do a lot of stuff in Director about 5 years ago.
Then, I stopped and did nothing but print. My new company wants me
to do some multimedia stuff and I am not sure if I should stick
with Director. I can still get around (mostly) but I have forgotten
a LOT (getting older does not help!) and it's gonna take a while to
get back up to speed.
It looks like there is very little going on Director-wise
these days. Even on Adobe's website, you have to click into a
secondary product area to even find it! So I am wondering if maybe
I should forget about using Director and just try to learn Flash?
Am I mistaken? I sure would LIKE to be, as I have always prefered
Director to Flash. Thanks much!
Oh, I am mostly displaying video on CD and intranet, creating
navigation for archiving pdfs and that sort of thing. Nothing
"cutting-edge" by any stretch.

I've been using Flash for about 7 years, Director for over
15. I've built many industrial strength applications in both. My
impression is that the average task can be approached in 50
different ways in Director, all of which will work -- and 50
different ways in Flash, only one of which will work, and you have
to go through all 49 others before you find it.
Flash also, though purportedly a designer's tool, ironically
breaks every rule of user interface design itself.
Examples:
- The same hotkey means different things depending on which
window is active -- and there's not always a visual indication of
which window that is.
- Some windows are always in front, some are not.
- How many times does "timeline" appear in different
cascading menus? Six? Seven?
- The hotkeys for many (but not all) of the most commonly
used functions have vanished from the menus, even though they still
work.
- There are different and easily confused mouse interaction
events available for movie clips vs. buttons (e.g., press vs.
mouseDown). It would appear that rollover is not available for
movie clips, as it does not appear in Script Assist, yet it is.
- And which of these two lines would you rather have to
debug?
Director: repeat with i = 1 to 100
or
Flash: for (i=1; i<=100; i++) {
I really didn't want to turn this into an anti-Flash screed.
All in all, I love some of what Flash can do, I really do -- but I
find it a brittle, fragile, counterintuitive environment. In my
experience, Director just works. Flash fights me every step of the
way.
Please take with a kilo of salt, YMMV, all that...

How long does it take and how should I learn...

Hi. First of all, sorry if this is in the wrong forum.
I am new to web-design (as in brand-new xD) and wish to learn Dreamweaver. With Dreamweaver being such a big application, with so many different tools etc I decided it would be best if I learned the languages I wish to use first, so as I know what Dreamwever is creating and I can 'fine-tune' my websites.
The languages I wish to learn are:
HTML
PHP
Javascript
MySQL (I am aware that this isn't a 'language', but would still like to learn how it works and use it effectively)
CSS
My questions are:
In which order should I learn these languages?
Which version of each language should I learn?
For example should I learn HTML5, with it being relatively new and not widely supported, but with the support growing so fast would it be worth just learning HTML5 straight away?
Can you reccomend any books etc for me to learn with? I am a full time college student, so will be teaching myself after college hours.
How long should I expect it to take to learn each language? (If you want to give the answer in days/months assume I will be spending 2hours per day average learning each language)
I do not want to learn every single detail about each language, but I do want to learn to a high enouhg level that I am comfortable with reading, understanding and editing my own code.
To help me understand your answers more clearly it would be great if you can just copy and paste this below (although feel free not to ):
What order should I learn these in?
Language:
Version:
How long (roughly) should it take?:
What resources van you reccomend for me to learn from?:
What experience do you have? (I'm just nosey like that :P):
Other comments:
Please feel free to copy and paste the second half (with all the questions) as many times as you like for each language you choose to tell me about.
Any help would be very greatly appreciated and please, if you for some reason find this post offensive, think back to when you were learning; everyone has to start somewhere.
Thanks for your time,
Ryan

Hi there
You will likely get better response by posting in the Dreamweaver forum.
Click here to visit the Dreamweaver forum
Cheers... Rick

Where can I learn Flash CS5.5 basic + Game development?

Hey where can I learn Flash CS5.5 basics along with game development with the Adobe Gaming SDK?

By the way i own the site 02geek.com its an online school for programing and we do focus a lot of our time in flash. if you want a step by step from 0 to geek type of training give my site a try

Should I learn JAVA or C#?

Should I learn JAVA or C#? Or...both of them!?

For the record, C# does not support multiple
inheritance. It is very much like Java except that it
has a few extra goodies thrown in. For my tastes, it
is not as pure as Java, but it is an improvement over
C++ and it has a few things, like operator
overloading, that would look nice in Java. Hey! Wait!
Stop! Stop the tomatoes! Please!Ugghh, operator overloading. What a nasty nasty thing that was. Why change something you have been seeing since you were in diapers to mean something else. + should alwalys be plus because we have all grown up knowing that. Imagine if you had a child and for the fun of it you taught him growing up that his left hand was his right hand,think of all the confusion he would have when he is learning how to drive and his instructor tells him to take a left. Even though he may learn that what he believes is left is now right he will always first think of his left hand as his right.

What language should I learn?

What single programming language should I learn that is most flexible? It's needs are to form the basis for MacOSX Cocoa applications, Linux command-line programs (and preferably least X11). This I ask here, for scientists likely lurk here, but don't always program in Objective C. (Though I've heard nothing but good things about it!)
Currently, I use a variant of APL to assist as I work. When simplifying my life, around 1980, I changed to one editor: the platform-independent emacs. Now I should like to do the same with a 'general' programming language.
Science is free, and scientists (I might suppose) support Richard Stallman's philosophy. Scientific source code needs be freely offered, written in an ISO standard language, and capable of being made platform-independent. It must easily be modified to use scientific libraries (lapack & netlib's others) and write linux, command-line programs, distributed by way of Sourceforge.
I've been separated from other scientists for a long time. Is there a language satisfying the above scientific requirements that can also write 'modular' object-oriented applications for MacOSX, using the Aqua interface? If there are no caveats to using 'Java' for this purpose, I'll invest time in that. Have scientists or others faced this question?
Thanks,
Bruce
PS. This question arose while searching for a simple little program to change images into icons:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7511505#7511505
Here's the continuation of that post, that illustrates the problem, likely faced my many:
Indeed, ... I could always use GraphicConverter.
This topic begs the question of why we use GraphicConverter or PhotoShop to change a single color in an image. That's wasn't always supposed to be the case.
Unix's credo: do only one thing, but do it well, and the popularity of Lotus 1-2-3, decades ago caused a great idea to emerge and gradually grow, until it became alive in developers' minds. Then it suffered a quick death, from unknown causes.
Modular Software
One day, a housewife becoming tired of spending a year learning and 'tuning' huge word processors to write a quick note saying she had gone to the corner market and would be back soon. The concept of modular software emerged: one would buy essentially, a text editor, then buy only those extra little modules you needed for your particular use: editing frills (as in emacs), formatting, adding images, importing & exporting formats, &c: 'personal' software. This needed a modular language; and, as it happened, C++ emerged soon. What ever happened to this idea (or the idea of using sounds for messages in addition to alarms, as in Growl), I never understood.
Simple Software
Many 'Google Images' have a white borders. It would be a clever idea to make background colors 'pure' (not in need of dithering when converted to a raster image). In the latter case, every GIF image could be dropped on an icon that could convert the lower-righthand pixel (the background) to a 'transparent' color. An old GIF image taken from the web could lose its background, and be ready to paste to the tiny icon in and 'Info Window'.
Simple Modules
Ah, but what about a Shft-Cmd-4 copy from my desktop? Mine are in JPEG format. I need to convert it to GIF. I could add a conversion module to the original little program (which could even convert to PNG). Ah, but the color of my Desktop varies or is, at least, not an 8-bit color (thank God). Then I could add a module that 'de-dithers' the color.
Relation to Unix
In old Unix these would be filters, something like this:
cat image | ddthr | rfmt -png > icon
Now I find myself using PhotoShop or GraphicConverter for finding & changing one color in an image. I'm still looking, and now becoming inclined to start programming again (which was always a mistake in the past).
Problems with Programming
Programming, I've avoided for two reasons: (1) two decades ago, I realized I had learned nearly a dozen text editors until I decided to use solely the platform-independent 'emacs'; and (2) I discovered it took me well over 6 months to master any programming language (more for a word processor), yet less than 6 weeks to forget it completely. (In the distant past, it was wise to choose one's language to match the project.)
Macs
However, I switched from Unix to Mac so I wouldn't have to think about computing any longer. Macs had always been built for such people as I, they are beautiful, and they can maintain themselves (or, a networked one can be set-up to do so).
APL
My preferred language is the APL variant 'J', which I use daily to test hypotheses, as I think about my research. Such a language, by the way, is great for pre-school children who can't read words yet. (Whether they'll ever be able to punctuate English correctly is another matter.)
http://www.jsoftware.com
Need for another Language
However, I need eventually to convert my scientific algorithms to run in a Linux shell, using Linux's operators (such as 'filter' or 'tee') to combine the little modules.
I'm now considering (re-)learning the platform-independent 'Java' language, and developing applications on Sourceforge. This way, scientific (ie. free) calculations could be integrated into online scientific papers and placed on other websites as well.

Kappy,
Sorry, I thought the question would be a common one confronting casual programmers. With such a variety of popular languages, there is likely no simple answer. I rescind the question with an apology and shall investigate my own problem myself. Sorry.
The question was, being tired of using the wrong but kindly written MacOSX applications, is there a programming language I can learn now that will also serve me in the future?
1. Now I need to write, for example, the program described to process photographic images, whose structures are arrays of arrays. Is there a language with such structures less bloated than C++?
2. Old APL an object-orented language designed for quickly writing algorithms for exactly these structures (the common structures in engineering, science, and mathematics).
3. Is there an object-oriented language for such structures, also used to write MacOSX applications, that one can learn to correctly build applications in 6 months (rather than 6 years)? This means strong typing, static type checking, automatic memory management, &c. An 'interpreter' as well would be nice!
4. For science, it must be a high-level, very portable but standard language that can be compiled into (say) byte code for a standard virtual machine that is on all computers. For image processing on my own little Mac, it needs to be compiled all the way to Altvec-optimized machine code.
5. Is there now such a beast? One that can be hooked at a low level with libraries (written in C or C++), and hooked at a high level to an OOUI (Aqua, in particular)?
Sorry, I expected an engineer to say:-
'Sure, MacOSX's compiler is based on the GCC, which contains a compiler for Java. It hooks at many levels. We use it to send code to afilliates around the Globe; and even Windows users haven't complained.
'Several lexical analyzers have even been written (in C) for Java: so you can parse your spam as well!'
But I don't know the above to be true.
I was looking for reasons why Java might not be the better of the GCC languages for 'amateur programming'. I'm sorry I 'passed the buck', when I shouldn't have. This footwork I'll do myself after I can again install /Developer.
Things I expect to be common problems never are.
Thanks anyway.
Bruce

Best book for Web Developer learning flash

I've gotten far on my own just using online tutorials and dinking around in Flash on my own but my boss(es) are starting to ask for more complex stuff that I simply can't learn by just piecing together my Flash education.
I know there's many, many books out there that will teach you Flash but can anyone recommend any particular one(s) that are more concentrated in creating Web elements as opposed to game or animation development?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I hope this link would be helpful for you books For web developer Using Flash by "William Sanders"
URL: http://search.oreilly.com/?q=Web+Developer+learning+flash&submit.x=9&submit.y=11
Best Regards,
Jake Bull
Assistant Manager
Recovery Bull Software

Should I learn Dreamweaver or FrontPage to make web pages?

Should I learn Dreamweaver or FrontPage to make web pages?
Both Dreamweaver and FrontPage are WYSIWYG (What You See Is
What You Get) web page editors. For basic web page development,
either one will do the job. In a review in the October 2001 issue
of PC Magazine, both programs were awarded five out of five stars
and both were Editors' Choice winners. FrontPage was cited as the
pick for ease of use, while Dreamweaver was the pick for advanced
applications. Compare the pros and cons for each program below and
make your choice. If you feel really adventurous, learn both!
Dreamweaver
Pros Cons
Relatively low-cost educational price ($99)
Available in Education labs
Produces very "clean" HTML code; easy to transport and work
with
Available in identical versions for both Windows and
Macintosh platforms
Supports development of your own template for pages in a
website
Relatively easy to set up for communicating with a server
from office or home
Powerful set of features for adding interactive elements to
web pages
Extensible - many extensions are available on the Macromedia
website
Has built-in tools to clean up HTML from other sources, such
as Microsoft Word
More expensive than FrontPage
Not available in all labs across campus
Not currently supported by SOE Technical Support Services
Somewhat difficult to learn at first
FrontPage
Pros Cons
Very low-cost -- free on-campus and only $5 for off-campus
use via Campus Microsoft Agreement
Available in labs across campus
Supported by SOE Technical Support Services
Easy to learn because of the familiar Microsoft menus and
toolbars
Comes equipped with many predesigned web page templates
Very easy to edit on SOE servers
Easy to add some features, such as some forms, to web pages
Doesn't produce code as cleanly as Dreamweaver
Current edition is available for Windows only; Macintosh
version is outdated and no longer being updated
Some features are specific to the Microsoft platform only
Lacks Dreamweaver's interactive development tools
For more information:
www.thebusinesssuccessgroup.com

http://p3t3.soe.purdue.edu/faqdream.htm
Developed and maintained by the P3T3 project at Purdue
University. Last
modified: 23-September-2001.
Please don't do blind postings of plagiarized out of date
material here.
> Produces very "clean" HTML code; easy to transport and
work with
> Available in identical versions for both Windows and
Macintosh platforms

Newbie wants to learn Flash

i want to learn flash. I have a very simple idea, but i need
to start somewhere. I didn't get anything with my software. Where
can I go to see a tutorial on Flash. I found some, but they go into
all the cool things, and I need to learn the very basics, like
size, fading, etc.
thank you!

Flash comes with numerous excellent tutorials for beginners.
Check the Help menu. If they didn't come with your software, it
seems that perhaps you don't have a legal version of Flash?

What should I learn next?

So I already know Python. I decided to learn Python because I heard it was a good language to start out with. I've got a good grasp of the language and have been making various scripts for my personal needs. I've become interested in other languages and have wondered what I should learn next. So should I learn another language or continue exercising my hacker skills with Python? I want to learn a wide variety of types of programming.

ArchArael wrote:Learning new programming languages is fun but I think it's better if you develop something.
Much more better would be some bug fixing or helping some existing projects.
You can always learn new languages when you need to and save your time for something more useful (girl friend, friends, books, games, music etc).
Learning programming languages just to learn keeps you from doing practice in programming.
Mastering something takes time and practice, as someone told you before.
I don't think so. Programming takes time and practice, sure, but it also takes reading code and reading about programming. You can't give a pen and paper to a kid and say "here, write me a book" and spect this kid will write a masterpiece if she hadn't read a lot before.
Learning a new language gives you insights of how programming works, even on different languages. Both you and I aren't native speakers of English, but learning it changed the way I see somethings in Portuguese and vice versa; I have a different understanding of English and Portuguese that I would have if I've learnt only one of them, I belive this applies to you, too. This also works with programming languages: the way I program in C was different before I grasped some Lisp, and it would probably be different if I hadn't learnt Python, and so on.
Back on-topic, I'd recommend learning C, so you can grasp some of the basics: pointers, memory allocation, structs and unions, etc. Later, I'd suggest you to learn a language that makes you think about programming in a different way: Lisp or Haskell. Shell script is also nice, but I'd only use it to "glue" things together, and I don't see a problem with learning it concurrently with another language.
Edit:
Edit: Forgot to add this,
http://www.e-booksdirectory.com/programming.php
now say goodbye to all your free time and go learn 6 or 7 languages.
Indeed, very good site. I like the Mathematics "folder", too.
Last edited by andre.ramaciotti (2009-07-29 14:28:59)

FAQ: How do I go about learning Flash Pro?

Because of the many different ways of using Flash Pro, and the overabundance of learning materials for it, knowing where to start is a challenge in itself.
Here's what we recommend:
The Flash Pro Dev Center provides a guide called Five steps to learning Flash Professional. It will give you a clear sense of what to focus on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.
Learning the Flash workspace - This short video provides a good overview of the workspace.
Creating your first Flash Professional CS5 document - This tutorial is a great introduction.
Introducing Flash Professional - And this video is a good intro to Flash in general.
Also, Adobe TV has a show devoted to Learning Flash Professional CS5 & CS5.5. Focus on the videos with titles that start with "GS" (for Getting Started) first.

Srami... welcome to the forum...
your question is MASSIVELY broad and depends on your requirements and delivery expectations.
Basically... 'best' for what?
It's helpful if you provide some details for people to assist you.

Should I learn flash?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for