Very Confused on where to start

[No1UKnow]

Okay I've been programming sites for a long time.

I'm awesome at graphics and simple Flash animation...
PHP, JavaScript, Perl, etc Programming and MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, I'm awesome at that too...

But ActionScript I've just never had a project or time to learn...

I was even on the first Beta team for Fireworks 1, when it came out as the first Macromedia product... So I'm a long time fan...

So here it goes I'm ready to finally dive in to ActionScript...

But now there is AS, AS2 and AS3...
And so many books on each...

Where do I start with books?

I'm a very fast visual learner...
And I have a very advanced project to do, that for me usually seals my knowledge to where I go deeper with something...

Hope that helps in understanding what I need.

So again, what books should I get? I'm going out today to buy..
So I want buy the beginner to advanced books that way I'll stay in deep for a while...

Also I'm not interested in Flex just yet...

Thanks for any help...

[Babaloo]

Hey unknown guy,
A great read is Phillip Kermans "Actionscripting in Flash MX". It's a bit outdated (AS), of course, but there's some solid AS programming foundation as well as a number of useful projects, explained in detail.

Speaking of foundations, "Foundation ActionsScript for Flash 8" (solid AS overview) and "Foundation ActionScript Animation Making Things Move" (great code snippets) are also "best" friends of ED. Clear, conscise reference. And there's the OReilly Actionscript Cookbook (2003) and OReilly Actionscript for Flash MX: Definitive Guide.

I keep coming back to them, being an AS n00b. I have to add they're not the visual learning kind of book, though.

hope helps ;)

[No1UKnow]

Thanks for the reply...

Yep I actually traded emails with Phillip a while back...
With AS3 being all new, I'm getting a lot of advice to leave AS2 behind...

Buying books in the morning.. thanks again...