Moock weighs in on ActionScript 3’s standards
The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0
Colin Moock, a preeminent ActionScript guru, takes the time to compile a list of top community complaints and weighs in as judge on whether or not Adobe is GUILTY or NOT GUILTY of over-complicating things in AS3.
More importantly, he explains how key things have changed and recommends AS3 solutions to features that have changed since AS2.The charges:
- The removal of on()/onClipEvent() from Flash CS3 makes creating simple interactivity hard.
- Getting rid of loaded .swf files is hard.
- Casting DisplayObject.parent makes controlling parent movie clips hard.
- The removal of getURL() makes linking hard.
- The removal of loadMovie() makes loading .swf files and images hard.
- ActionScript 3.0’s additional errors make coding cumbersome.
- Referring to library symbols dynamically is unintuitive.
- Adding custom functionality to manually created text fields, to all movie clips, or to all buttons is cumbersome.
- The removal of duplicateMovieClip() makes cloning a MovieClip instance (really) hard.
- The verdicts and solutions can be found here:
http://www.insideria.com/2008/07/the-charges-against-actionscri.html
What’s this all about?
With ActionScript 3, Adobe took a huge leap forward in terms of language robustness, efficiency and EMACS compliance. The result is an extremely powerful core language for Adobe’s empire of design and media products and platforms. In doing this, however, they are drifting away from their original motto of ‘the easiest way to create interactive media.’
I applaud the move. In the days of AS 1 and 2, Adobe got probably thousands of people who would never have approached something like AS 3 into the mindset of developers. Since then, however, the game has changed. The size and quantity of media out there, along with the traffic that demands it, has exploded. With more sensitive information out there, security is a growing concern. The stakes have changed and Adobe has matured it’s core language to handle them nicely.
Also, the thousands of developers who got their kicks out of slapping together shiny interfaces in 20 minutes and wowing their bosses are finding that they have to mature along with the times. This is an often painful but necessary transition and will leave those who engage it in a position to wield the assets of the web in even more exciting ways.