Beginners should not be coding AS3. It's really that simple. AS3
requires a whole new level of strict coding practices and is not for
beginners. Null pointer exceptions are extremely important to catch
because they can cause a Flash app to crash, and the foresight to know
where and how those will trip you up requires a lot of coding
experience. I've been programming over 13 years and I still get caught
by the occasional null pointer.
You have to cast everything in AS3 anyway, and understanding why you
have to cast requires understanding of OOP and strict coding practices.
AS3 is very strict. It's not for everyone, in fact, it's not for most
people. There's a reason that AS2 won't be going anywhere for awhile,
and it's because it's forgiving and fails gracefully and both
non-programmers and lazy programmers appreciate that. I know I miss it
sometimes. Writing try catches with nothing in the catch in order to
fail gracefully is hacky, but when I've got a deadline looming, I'm glad
it's there because there's no way I'm going back to AS2 again. ;)
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