The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0 | Hacker News Reader

The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0

insideria.com

16 pointsDocSavage9 comments

I work with ActionScript 3.0 on a daily basis. This article does a good job of summarizing some of the things that are wrong with the language and that I have run into. The advice on how to try and fix what is wrong was useful. Flash is the most widely adopted (http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/vers...) way of presenting complex interactivity in a browser. For those trying to reach the widest audience possible for casual games it is the best choice. With the release of the flex compiler it is possible to create Flash content without having to buy the Flash IDE and FlashDevelop (http://www.flashdevelop.org/) provides a good alternative IDE.

I need to do a tiny bit of flash development for a larger project that's mostly not flash. Would you be willing to answer a couple of questions that I can't find definitive answers for? I'd really appreciate it.

I would have emailed you, but I don't see an address in your profile. If you've filled in your email address, well, that field isn't visible to anybody but pg and the editors. You have to put it in the "about" field for everybody to see it.

I can try. I'll send you an email.

With the exception of stricter typing, these are problems of the new Flash runtime, not AS3 (even the ones labeled as AS3). As a language, AS3 is far superior to its predecessors, but because of its simultaneous release with the new runtime the blame is often misplaced.

As far as missing runtime features go, most of the points are very valid. Top of my list: sandboxing of external content and cloning movie clips (which would presumably be implemented in a cheaper way than just creating multiple instances).

I admit to only reading part of the article, but it seems like the author just wants a media scripting language, not a "programming" language, which AS3 has become. The sandboxing and unloading are legitimate issues, but have nothing to do with the language.

I wouldn't necessarily be against a wholly different language for use in the timeline, as I prefer not to put code there anyway, assuming I have to use those ugly Movieclips at all. I could see something terse and elegant, eschewing the AS2 prototype nastiness, being useful for animators and light programmers alike. I think the biggest barrier for most is the new event model. Adding listeners is a bit verbose for those used to simply overriding an on() method.

AS3 is a mess in that it tries to be everything to everyone. I would prefer plain old fashioned javascript, like that in my browser right now to the AS3 mess. It's bolted-on Java-esq OO features are clearly just that. Hopefully AS3 dies along with Adobe's inevitably doomed RIA effort.

Amazing. AS3 is messier than javascript? Are you huffing ether? Absolutely none of the OO features are "bolted-on". You must be talking about AS2, for which this would be a legitimate argument. BTW, AS3 is a well-conformed implementation of the ECMA4 standard, which is, wait for it, the javascript 2 spec! Welcome to the present.

AS2 and 3 aren't much different in how their OO features are implemented. So to suggest that AS2's features are bolted on and AS3's aren't doesn't make much sense logically. Actually you've sort of implied that i am correct if you think about it. And why is it that AS3 conforming to the ECMA4 standard somehow gives it immunity to sucking?

Gotta differ with you on the OO point. There are quite a few fundamental differences, both in terms of low-level implementation and common usage. AS3 has true class-based object definition, packages and namespaces, for example. AS2's class support is merely an obfuscation of its underlying prototype system, whereas AS3 features real class objects, and prototypes exist only as an alternative inheritance mechanism.

I'm curious what it is about AS3 OO that you perceive as bolted on. Seems pretty well rooted to me. Btw apologies for my brash tone before, that was a bit dickish.

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