It existed in AS3 too. Wasn't widely known to my knowledge though.
var val : String = "foo";
var foo : XML = <foo><bar prop={val} /></foo>;
...and it worked. I swear this wasn't documented anywhere. That said, I just googled a few Flex examples (I never used Flex) and it seems to be common there, so I guess that explains why at least someone knew it existed!The formal language specification came fairly late in AS3's useful life, but it also describes the syntax: http://help.adobe.com/livedocs/specs/actionscript/3/as3_spec...
I don't know if this would've been a super useful feature for me a decade ago, but it's nice to know it was there anyway.
That Adobe abandoned he technology rather that retooling it to target HTML5 is a strategic blunder up there with... I can't actually work out an equivalent.