----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Sacks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Flash Coders List" <flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0
Everyone forgets their roots. Nobody remembers what it was like when they
were first learning Flash and learning the basics of programming.
Colin Moock forgot his roots when six months ago he wrote an article about
how easy AS3 was to learn and how n00bs should be learning it right out
the gate.
Colin Moock has now remembered his roots and written what amounts to an
effective retraction of his original article.
Anyone who looks at the archives of Flashcoders knows where I stand on
this issue. People who say all these features in AS3 are much better are
either
1. Experienced, talented coders, or people who came from other programming
languages.
2. See 1.
Yes, it's really bad to put scripts on MovieClips or nested in some
timeline somewhere. But, it's also really good for some designer who just
needs to get some glorified banner out the door.
Yes, it's questionable OOP to use _parent._parent, and it's certainly hard
to maintain, but it's also really good for some animator who just needs to
set the text of some TextField two levels up.
Advanced coders often take their intelligence and knowledge for granted.
I'll put myself in the "or people who came from other programming
languages." camp.
As such I find AS3 far easier than AS2, which seems very quircky by
comparison.
I think the main reason there appears to be some bad feeling about AS3 is
that (naturally enough) people get familiar with things and don't like to
see them change.
My opinion is that for flash newbies AS3 is far simpler to learn than trying
to get to grips with the idiosynchacies of AS2.
I'll freely admit that if you have an easy animation job that's disposable,
AS1 is the way to do it.
Generally speaking I'm with Patrick not Moock on this one, but as you say it
probably depends on your background where your sympathies lie.
Paul
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