Time to get serious about learning ActionScript 3.. put down that Java book and get prepped for the next revolution in Flash.
Here's the link, and oh yeah.. you won't be compiling that with your old Flash 8 IDE.. you'll need to go to the labs and install Flex Builder 2.0
Good stuff in there by the way.. and it's clear that unlearning much of the ActionScript 2 syntax is a necessity for working with AS3..
All of this change in Flash to a more OOP centered, make the Java and .NET developers feel warm and fuzzy when they look at Flex, etc is great for moving Flash into the position of being a more respected and used technology.. but something has been kind of bugging me for a while and I couldn't put my finger on it. Well, after looking through some of the AS3 docs it hit me... how many of the people that have made Flash such a cool technology to play with are going to stick with it? When I went to Flash conferences in the past I didn't feel terribly out of place. I got my degrees in Art and didn't go through the formal computer science degree that a lot of programmers go through, and it seemed that most of the Flash folks that I met who were doing the cutting edge stuff came from art backgrounds. Some of this might be because Flash started out primarily as an animation tool and so the folks who have used it the longest are the art crowd. Flash8 with all the new filter effects, improved video features, etc made those designers happy, but how many of the "designers turned coders" will throw in the towel when they start looking at the necessity to learn AS3? Have you looked over the migration sheet? Gulp..
ActionScript 3 Language Specification draft released Wednesday, March 01, 2006
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08 May 2006 at 02:40 pm | #
I'm one of the opposite--a coder irritated at the idiosyncracies which make AS a less productive development platform. The bright side to all this is that Flash will likely become more widely used, which means more development which means more capabilities which means better tools which means better sites.... you get my jist. Cheers.
08 May 2006 at 04:34 pm | #
We're in agreement here.. the changes will bring in new developers, new tools, more respect from non ActionScript developers, etc. and that's a good thing.
My fear though is that the massive unlearning and relearning needed to switch from AS2 to AS3 is going to cause some of the designer types to jump ship, and that would be a bad thing.
09 May 2006 at 11:49 am | #
On the other hand, if designers are as productive coding as I am designing--which is not very--having them jump ship might free up a lot of time for them to design, meet coder types who like to implement cool designs, drink beer, etc. My assumption is that if they jump ship, they won't jump to some competing technology, they'll just jump off the coding deck, maybe to the specifiying deck.
14 Feb 2007 at 05:28 pm | #
With the change towards AS3 I am afraid I will stick to my old ways in AS 1 and AS 2. For me as a designer AS 3 is like an end of Flash. Don't get me wrong, this evolution of flash is only normal. Just like kids finally have to grow up. The first 10 years of flash will be remembered as the experimental, wild and creative years because of all the different people using it. The next 10 years will be for developers and maybe designer-developers only. (And project managers of bigger webprojects who suddenly think of flash and flex as the future of the web. Those were the ones spitting on it the first 10 years.) Well, the designers and creatives did there job. And they did it brilliantly. But soon the only element in the UI of flash that will remind us of the early 'animated' days will be the timeline. I bet one day soon it will dissapear. Developers were always afraid of that weird thing in flash. With AS3 you don't need it any longer?
So, reid is right, I will jump off leaving flash for the coders. But I might also jump to another technology. A new, intuitive graphic tool, where coding and designing go hand in hand. I will keep my old PC with Flash 8 on it to play around for pure fun, doing it the wrong way. Like an old spaceship lost in coding space. Until the day that the newest Flashplayer will stop running my obsolete, designers-voodoo code.
What will be lost in Flash is the freedom to do things the wrong way. This is something very normal for creative people. There is for instance not something like the right way to make a painting. Every painter has the right to paint as he feels or thinks.
So Flash is an adult now. Hand it over to the coders! They desperately need to do things the right way. Come on coders, it is your turn now, do transform all those boring page-based sites in smooth flash apps...