will AS 3.0 settle down ?

[noobfosho]

there were so many changes since flash 8.

buttons, methods....etc etc

i love to learn actionscripting but its kind of vexing to keep up with these updates all the time, especially when the difference is that big that i will have to dig up tutorials to relearn them all over again!

[ASWC]

Flash is a web technology and the web is not settling down and probably won't for a long time so why Flash should?

[maskedMan]

I've only just barely had an opportunity to get my feet wet in AS3 and I'm already hearing about AS4 coming. I'm wondering if it's even worth my while to bother with AS3 any longer if it's just going to be superseded in the near future given how well I know AS2.

[noobfosho]

the changes were made so older versions do not work.
After seeing how they retired many of the functions, i was kinda lost when i tried meddling with flash again.

its not made like having new internal functions as additions on the later versions which means whatever you learn might not be useful in 5-6 months time.

i know thats a web trend, but isnt it moving way too fast...?

[Colin Campbell]

It won't settle down, and it shouldn't. There's always a need for more features and speed. AS4 is going to introduce objects like Vectors that will greatly help with speed, as well as hopefully function overloading. ECMA editions build off past language editions, and as such, so will the ActionScript language versions. If you thought going from AS2->AS3 was hard, don't give up and try going from AS2->AS4 (you will have to do it eventually, or stop coding AS). As long as Flash is popular, there will be progress in certain areas. That's just the nature of technology. Fighting it leaves you with inferior skills working with inferior technology working inferior jobs, period. ActionScript will never have the legacy code needs of a language like Fortran, and they're still coming out with new versions of Fortran.

[ASWC]

Well there's also the fact that Flash and actionscript are leading in their market and when you lead in a web market you cannot stop improving or your concurrents will take over because we might forget but Flash has concurrents!

[noobfosho]

oh well perhaps its a foolish thought on my part thinking that the techonology would slow down a little for slow learners like myself. BAHHHHH !

;P

[evride]

Well there's also the fact that Flash and actionscript are leading in their market and when you lead in a web market you cannot stop improving or your concurrents will take over because we might forget but Flash has concurrents!

and we don't want silverlight to pass flash by. that would suck.

[jsebrech]

The changes from AS3 to AS4 are probably going to be much less severe than from AS2 to AS3. I think learning AS3 now if you don't know it already is still the best path to take.

[BernzSed]

The changes from AS3 to AS4 are probably going to be much less severe than from AS2 to AS3. I think learning AS3 now if you don't know it already is still the best path to take.

I sure hope so. I mean, AS3 is a completely different language than AS2 in every way except for the syntax.
I JUST learned AS3 a month ago! I mean, learning new stuff is exciting, but there's a limit.

[BernzSed]

Although, now that I think about it, I could use some better inheritance stuff. I mean, yes we have "override", but that's kind of useless. I want abstract methods!

Oh, yeah, and bringing back some of the simplicity of AS2 wouldn't be that bad. The cool new functionality and object-oriented focus is great and all, but sometimes I miss being able to make functional buttons with just 2 lines of code.


Oh, what the hell. Gimme AS4 already!

[Bowie]

I say: Bring it. It would be great if the event model and display object architecture stayed the same in at least the next version of AS. Adhering to the strictness and new architecture has really made me have to rethink the way I build with flash. This is probably a good thing in the grand scheme of things. I feel that that this version of actionscript is preparing me for more formal coding practices in OOP design patterns, layer abstraction and more traditional DRY programming.

AS1 really is so much easier in my opinion. I'm really glad that I jumped on the wagon at that point being that flash had been my introduction to the programming world, and I was never intending to be a coder, but rather entertaining the notion of becoming a designer and animator. Back in AS1 we had it pretty easy when it came to getting things to talk to each other. I feel that I had my own creative means by which to handle situations that don't necessarily fit into the mold of the more traditional strict programming architecture. This had been fine granted that I rarely worked in teams and if so, we were looking at maybe 2-3 people where planning and API's were 15-30 minutes worth of throwing around ideas at best. AS3 is really prodding me to accept the standards of the programming world. Then to the contrary I feel that there's not too much wrong with being a creative code hack if you do it in a smart and manageable way. Besides that's where actionscript is essentially spawned from "code for visual designers" Is that left brain or right brain? Let's meet in the middle. In the end I'm open to whatever gets the job done in a quality fashion.

Just like with design patterns, we don't need to use a structure just because it is available. Sometimes a seemingly chaotic Jackson Pollack is more suited to a situation than a well calculated Escher.

Actionscript, thank you and yeah bring it on! I'm hungry for more