Things get lost in translation, but one goal of the parallel frameworks is to not leverage things that get lost in translation. Otherwise, since JS and AS are ECMA-based, the translation works pretty well.
Keep in mind that, while Adobe is no longer investing in ActionScript 3 on the Flash Player, and not developing Flash Player for mobile devices, and AIR may not run on all mobile devices, where the FlashPlayer is today, it will likely be there “forever”. So, if alll of your users are using desktops/laptops that have browsers that have Flash, you can continue to use Flex and/or ActionScript 3 to build applications and they will likely run there not just in five years, but even after that. There is no time-bomb in the players that will go off and stop running. Even though ActionScript Next and FlashPlayer Next are not compatibile with ActionScript 3, the AS3 VM will ship in the FlashPlayers that Adobe ships in the future. There is the possibility that the browser vendors will stop supporting plugins, but I would imagine they will keep a compatibility-mode somehow. I think there is too much Flash content out there and to block it from existing desktops/laptops would “break the web” and I don’t expect the browser vendors or Adobe take such a risk. There would be too much negative press. That doesn’t mean that new computers with new OS’s may not support Flash (that’s what Apple did with IOS), and many home users may forgo traditional computers for tablets in the future, so keep that in mind as well. I don’t know the PDF market that well, but again, I would expect PDFs to continue to support Flash “forever” as well. At least for the readers on traditional desktops/laptops. On 12/17/12 10:48 AM, "John McCormack" <j...@easypeasy.co.uk> wrote: Thank you. That's interesting and very helpful. One does wonder if a separate translation tool would do the job faithfully, and so creates doubt. For someone that wants to use SWFs in PDFs to deliver educational content that is fully interactive, what workflow would you suggest using for the next three to five years? John On 17/12/2012 16:31, Alex Harui wrote: Re: [flexcoders] Re: Flex alternatives Adobe has no plans that I know of to get ActionScript to work with HTML5 in the same way that Google is proposing Dart as an alternative to JavaScript. The Apache Flex project is working on a compiler that will translate ActionScript to JavaScript. In addition, the link I posted proposes a component framework that would enable you to build or prototype your app in Flash using FlashBuilder and ActionScript and then run a separate tool outside of FlashBuilder to translate it to JavaScript where it will run and leverage HTML or HTML5 components. Alternatively, the same ActionScript to JavaScript compiler would let you write the script portions of your website as ActionScript using FlashBuilder and have separate HTML files, then use the same separate tool outside of FlashBuilder to translate the ActionScript to JavaScript. And maybe variations will be created that can output to various JS frameworks. At this time, there are no plans to change FlashBuilder to integrate the translation workflow. Adobe’s focus for FlashBuilder is on building ActionScript gaming and premium video projects that run on the Flash player. I suppose if the JS workflow became wildly popular and Adobe could see a revenue stream by supporting such a workflow things might change, but I wouldn’t count on it. There is a better chance that someone in Apache Flex will start creating plugins for Eclipse to support the workflow or one of the other tool vendors will provide an integrated workflow. The future of ActionScript 3 in Rich Internet Applications (as opposed to ActionScript “Next” as mentioned in the Flash roadmap) is actually being given more attention by Apache Flex than Adobe. If you want to continue to use ActionScript 3 to develop RIAs, I would encourage you to get involved with the Apache Flex project. On 12/17/12 2:16 AM, "John McCormack" <j...@easypeasy.co.uk> wrote: On 17/12/2012 05:12, Alex Harui wrote: Re: [flexcoders] Re: Flex alternatives Adobe has spent the year donating the Flex SDK and Falcon compilers to the Apache Software Foundation. While Adobe has a small set of people contributing to Flex in Apache and a team that shipped Flash Builder 4.7 and is working on subsequent Flash Builder release, Adobe is not leading the development of Flex and has not been for a full year. The future of Flex is in the hands of the Apache Flex community. This document should have made Adobe’s plans clear: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html I followed this link through to http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html Under Flash Player "Next" this says... " and provide a foundation on which Flash can move forward over the next decade." Does this imply ActionScript working collaboratively with HTML5 or is it an alternative to HTML5? I am asking because I am hoping Flash Builder will continue to offer me a way forward (AS3+HTML5). John -- Alex Harui Flex SDK Team Adobe Systems, Inc. http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui -- Alex Harui Flex SDK Team Adobe Systems, Inc. http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui
