[f9/AS3] First demo and thoughts..

[chriserrorplain]

So, finally got some spare time to install Flash9Alpha and have a blast at it.
Now, I personally, have never ever liked Macomedia's previous attempts at OOP languages, I never saw the point in trying to make Flash read and compile like JAVA, as that's not what made flash so successful in the first place (more advanaced code structures just lead to more expensive development in my opinion). So I was mucho scared about trying to do some AS3, but then I discovered much to my joy, that there seems to be no need...or am I missing somehting?

I made this demo :
http://www.errorware.co.uk/lab/as3/particles001.html

just added a version with mooore particles
http://www.errorware.co.uk/lab/as3/particles002.html

nothign special, just some particles, not optimised at all, but seems to run faster than any previous version of flash could have AND it's all written procedurally. Now I don't want to get into an argument abotu why I should code OOP, I make games, only games and have devleoped my system of making them over years and am happy. But am I mssing somehting, I was led to belive that iw ould ahve to write everyhting in classes and packages to access AS3, but it does not seem to be the case to me....

anyone want to tell me what I am missing?

Christophererror :)

[cancerinform]

You still have the choice not to write in classes as the demo files from Adobe show. Personally, I am only developing using class files since AS2 already and keep that habbit in AS3 as well. For larger applications it is more recommendable instead of having tons of code in the fla file itself.

[tonypa]

In Flex you can only use classes and stuff and because AS3 was introduced with Flex you might think you have to do it same way with Flash too. Luckily no :)

AS3 is not much different from AS2 in this case, if you wrote AS2 code without class files, you can do same in AS3 too. Then again if you know other programming languages where everything goes by classes you can do it in Flash same way.

[mRNA]

I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed this: when using AS3 in Flash, does it not matter if you write import statements, such as import flash.event.*;?

[cancerinform]

When you do not create your own classes (.as files) but write your script directly in a frame on the main timeline you do not need to import classes for the methods you use, as far as I have seen.

[mRNA]

That is very handy!

It means that the entire library of flash.* rides piggyback on the Timeline. That'll allow Flash developers to hash out prototypes and conceptual projects without working with multiple files. Though according to the people at www.gskinner.com/blog , the Timeline is currently host to all sorts of memory-related problems.

[Frets]

That is a flash implimentation which has nothing to do with fp9
Been that way for years in smax