how often do you hear this ?
lets rollback a little bit, Actionscript is a part of Adobe Flash programming or scripting language, its also used in Adobe AIR/Flex environment.
Personally, i code and publish websites using actionscript 2.0, i find it easier to code & easier to come up with a solution after breaking down problems ( problem solving ) at least thats how i code.
i break down a project into smaller problems and solve each ones individually, however this is not the case here .
When Actionscript 3 was introduced, i though, HEY its Actionscript 2.0 with more features, guess i was right about the features not even close about actionscript 2.
Migration, i thought this wont take much time to catch up with, catching up was OK but applying what i knew in Actionscript 2 in Actionscript 3 is totally a different thing.
AS3 is more likely to be strict, when i first tried writing button functions it took me more time to write a single function than what it takes to write a function in AS2, its about time me thinks, what i don’t like in AS3 is the OOP ( this again is a personal opinion ) as designers, we tend to like AS2 because its not so complicated, by looking at tutorials, advanced users tend to use their own classes to build up their projects, which is a good thing, making your code reusable, designers & beginners cant go that deep ( i wounder what adobe were thinking of ), yes designers are frightened to use AS3.
Then stick your ass with AS2 you may think, i would, im still publishing websites @ 2.0, but AS3 and flash player 10 has more features like native XML, Timer, the use of 3D engines like papervision, the new bone & 3D tools in Cs4 besides the tweening & built in motion editor … i can go on forever, all the cool stuff are being written in AS3, i feel like im forced to learn AS3 because AS2 might become obsolete, just like what happened to our granpa AS1.
i learnt flash on my own when Lee Brimelow published his video tutorial site about 3 years ago(me thinks), i also bought few good books from friendsofed & lynda.com, the main reason though for any success is practice & practice makes perfect, purchased my own domain name zainals.com and published my first flash site , started experimenting on my own kid ( V1, V2, V3, etc … ).
What am going to do is try and develop a flash AS3 flash website of my own, applying all what i know in AS2 in AS3, this would probably make AS3 look brighter in my perspective..
OOP comes in later on once i completely understand how AS3 works, i just wish that Adobe makes it easier for us designers…
Hello,
I myself still code in AS 2.0 but I use OOP. Still getting the hang of it, but I’ve been told that my code looks good and is written with A3 in mind.
Take it from me. LEARN OOP. I know flash was originally meant for designers, but that was 10 years ago. You have seen what you can do with AS3/OOP. Just go to thefwa.com to see more. Don’t give up and learn it well. Good Luck.
i hear ya Ahmed, thanks for the info.
I have learned AS through trial and error, sometimes i still use trial and error methods in my designs, within OOP its hard to go back and forth between classes and stage compilation .
time is what is killing me to be honest i want to learn many things but… if we only had 48 hours per day … lol
Yes – I HATE AS3 with a passion.It took me years learn AS2 to a level I’d call competent, and now this birds-nest is thrown in to the mix. I just can’t get started with AS3. OK for programmers I guess, but from my own experience, most users of Flash are designers first, programmers last, if at all. AS2 was intuitive, and to some degree an easy learning curve. I think Adobe have really alienated a lot of users by taking this approach with AS.
it would at least be nice to compile a movie that has a mix of AS2 & AS3, so that snippets of code for AS3 could be inserted when needed. It’s a shame that’s not possible. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll even bother learning AS3 – I simply don’t have the time while developing sites using AS2
I’m with you on that Mark. I agree that AS3 is way more powerful than anything that has come before in Flash, but what is the point if designers can’t use it. Flash was always about getting great visual effects with little or no hassle. Now it seems like I may as well go away and learn C++ or Java to get the same results.
I have always enjoyed the technical and artistic mix in new media jobs where skills are needed in both arenas but it seems that Adobe are reinforcing the divide between pure designers and pure developers by taking away that small area of blur between design and development. Web design in the classic sense is dying, soon there will be a clear divide between graphic design and web development. I for one will be sad to see it go.
Cant agree more with both of you…
Im experimenting with AS3 in a level without using OOP.
Still though when you watch the experts demo’s and experiment they tend to go boink boink deep OOP.
I think adobe are trying to put up a barrier between designers and developers .
Been away from my beloved country for too long, can’t wait to get back and settle there once more. Great to see people loving flash/AS in Bahrain
Mohammed said:
“i break down a project into smaller problems and solve each ones individually, however this is not the case here .”
That sounds like a programmer thinking in OOP mode
AS3 is the best thing that happened to flash. The language has reached a level that even Java developers show us some respect. This says alot compared to the AS1/AS2 days when actionscript developers were considered the kids in town. This has changed! Greater performance with more features and a better language. With all those extra features and enhancements, it had to be an entirely new language, code base, compiler (AVM2) and so on…
My advise is start using AS3. Use any excuse to use it! Once you get your head around the core subjects, you will be more than happy to dish out apps in no time. Get familiar with:
- Display list
- Events model
- OOP syntax
Get the Colin Moock book, Essential Actionscript3. This book will easily find a place on your shelf.
A good thread by Senocular:
http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223798
AS3 behaves itself very well when enforcing design patterns which is another great addition.
Before you know it, you’ll be in love all over again
ps. Garbage collection is the one thing i hate about AS3. In FP10 they atleast added a function stopAndUnload() which is good for now…GSkinner hates it too.
Hamad
I hate AS3 so much. I am gonna use AS2 until I find a totally new program I can use. I will never learn that fucking codehead AS3 mess. Bye bye Adobe.
you same to be very professional … i agree with u in your point .. I hate AS3 its much harder than AS2 more complicated code more work more time .. hard to get the final result right
.. i am developing games in AS3 its so hard am suffering 
would you help if i need help ??!!
Hate? I despise Flash and want to see it burn to the ground so we can go back to much simpler time…I still use flash 8 because i’m a designer and I’m proud to be one. My brain don’t understand anything I see when it comes to AS3 even if I took classes and tutorial. No it is not for me.
I used to be a king of the “if..then..goto”. I could make any type of games even some real hot fake 3D out of images sequences and for that time (1998-2005)it was really impressive.
Then came this thing..AS3.
No more contract and no more trust in my skills. Adobe just killed it. Nowaday I do a banner here and there and still try my hand at thing like VBScript which I seem to understand more than AS3.
Don’t serve me the line : “keep it up man, try to learn AS3..It’s magic!!!” We are not all the same. I work with programmers regularly and they don’t have a clue when it come to match color palette with teal or burgundy..Soi tell me, why do I HAVE to understand AS3?
Very disapointed Adobe customer.