The charges agaisnt AS3

[Wattz]

Well, my argument wasn't that AS3 sucked, it was that Adobe has made the easy-to-get-into script into another convoluted programming language.

For people who are designers, illustrators, and general novices, learning a REAL language is not interesting, nor should it be necessary to make their content interactive. That was the point of the original Flash and AS combo.

AS3 is great... It's just a bit too much.

[Al Capwn]

1. AS3 needs a clone for display objects

2. Needs getPixel for non-bitmapData objects.

3. Needs something so I can apply individual changes to all members of a class without having to store a static array.

4. Needs to simplify the class structure. Why do I need 3 classes to post a link or load a picture? Why do I need a bitmap class and a bitmapdata class? You're telling me you can't just merge them?

5. CS3 needs to suck less and be more like flashdevelop. Flashdevelop is a wonderful IDE.

6. AS3 needs a variable type-detection function. If this already exists, I'd love it if someone would tell me.

Of course, I can create custom classes to get around some of this stuff, but it's slower, and I really shouldn't have to.

[Boombanguk]

ook. Can someone answer a very simple question, why oh why do I need to learn a lot of complicated crap, just to do something that is far easier to do in AS2 anyway? so I can call myself a "real" programmer? I really don't understand the thinking behind AS3, ok so gives you some performance gains.....and? so what? I've always been a designer/developer and that was good enough for me, I don't want to be a developer/developer just to get the same results I was getting already (although maybe slightly faster). When I come at a problem in Flash, I'm always thinking hmm...can I do this on the timeline? can I i do this in AS? combination of both? and AS2 fits into that way of thinking perfectly, AS3 just doesn't. Because the coding side of things takes so much faffing around that I just can't be bothered.

All adobe have done with AS3 is alienate the designer/developer which was the root base of users that Flash had, to make it more appealing to non Flash developers. That situation needs to be addressed with the next version.

[mr_malee]

Its not complicated. Just because you're a designer doesn't mean you can't learn programming. All I hear is, I'm a designer so I will never learn to program, I was born with a rare designer disorder that prevents me doing so.

the situation doesn't need to be addressed. You need to learn new concepts, why you ask? because this technology is evolving.

if its too difficult to grasp then just stick with AS2, simple. The whole point of AS3 is to perform better, if you don't care about that ("ok so gives you some performance gains.....and? so what?") then don't even bother using it.

Adobe hasn't alienated anyone, they have kept their software backwards compatible throughout all IDE releases. Its still possible to code in AS1, flash player 6. I still do when creating banners.

I think my avatar needs bigger angrier eyebrows and red flashing eyes

[AfternoonDelite]

I haven't read all the posts, but I'm going to give my two cents.

I think the IDE is the main issue. They decided to go with a more OOP approach, but they hardly changed their IDE. It makes it rather difficult to program using the new framework. I doubt any programmer even enjoys programming in their IDE. So, although AS3 is a nice scripting language, Flash CS3 was a pretty big disappointment. It added disadvantages for people that Flash has always been directed towards by trying to attract programming attention. I think they really need to focus on creating an IDE that will make the programming environment more intuitive. It's really not a difficult framework to understand, but there is no effort made to help those who are not programmers.

[tomsamson]

malee, several things, first up in a previous post you said this:
"Does anyone actually know for sure if their objects were "completely gone" from memory in AS2?, if anyone can prove to me that AS2 objects get removed from memory more than AS3 objects do then i'll eat my hat."

Again, go watch the video Incrue posted some posts back and then go eat your hat.


Next up you say things like this:
"Its not complicated. Just because you're a designer doesn't mean you can't learn programming. All I hear is, I'm a designer so I will never learn to program, I was born with a rare designer disorder that prevents me doing so."

This is ignorant. Not everyone has to see things like you or feel like you.
Its not a disorder if a designer or interactive designer doesn´t feel like its the most awesome thing to become an oop coder just to get interactivity going he could achieve before without having to become one before.Its fine you and me and many others are able to code in oop manner, know about classes,inheritance, encapsulation, local variables versus keeping things global/static,data types and what not all but you have to understand that others don´t feel like learning all this and they don´t have to.
Who are we to look down at others as if they just haven´t reached a certain mindset or skill level yet? Maybe those interactive designers partially do way cooler stuff for way longer than some new school flex component based ria mini app maker oop kiddy?
I don´t want to talk either down but yeah,each side has advantages for different things, but yeah a big part of the professional working flash platform content creator community could get interactivity going without having to become an developer/developer (as Boombanguk put it )oop guy, they could be designer/developers or similar and you won´t be able to tell them why that shouldn´t be possible anymore, either they should only use older stuff or they should now be restricted to become graphic designers only and better not touch code at all.
If such things are your or adobe´s suggestion then that´s what will cut off more and more sells for the flash platform porducts in the future.
You can´t just throw a few graphic capabilities features to them each second version and say, yeah, that codeside changes, we won´t make em accessible for you, swallow it, either you learn it or you just can´t get anything done in code anymore.

Also, again, performance as argument for forced workflow on AS3/F9 Player export is ridiculous, again, go check out unity demos where you can code in Javascript and get content running and hugely better performance. This is not to pimp unity, its to show that its ridiculous Adobe doesn´t propperly raise the general performance of the player enough in other ways and their only halfway (still laughable) offer is putting all optimisations on codeside and on content developers´ shoulder.
I´d have more understanding for having a workflow like with AS3 forced on one for highend performance requiring situations if then the resulting featureset/performance would be as with unity, but just with what one gets with the flash player its laughable.

[mr_malee]

they don´t have to.

why?

[Incrue]

why?

Because they dont have the problems oop was designed to solve.

[hatu]

Because they dont have the problems oop was designed to solve.

But you don't have to write OOP code. You could write OOP code just (almost) as well in AS2.

[mr_malee]

ok, as soon as you write a line of code you are "programming", you have stopped designing at that point. So what problems does a "programmer" have that cannot be solved using OOP? It was designed to primarily solve problems.

so my question is, if a designer starts to program (thus becoming a programmer) why does he/she need special help? Why do I (someone who does more programming than design) need to learn how to use a language and a designer (who does less programming than design) not need to?

a programming language is a language, you don't half learn a language and tell everyone you can speak it. You continue to learn the language until you can speak it, so you can order those tasty snails at an authentic french restaurant and not get angry when frogs legs come out.

let me ask you, since the release of AS3, has the quality of flash work about the web diminished or heightened?

[Kianis]

I'm with malee on this one. AS3 has brought only good things to flash, making it "proper" and OOP is a huge time saver for me, every time I go back to AS2 it slows me down. Just the other day an obscure dive-by-zero bug held me puzzled for hours.

For the IDE, maybe they should bring back the code assistance though, maybe make a few wizards that generate code to help code-unfriendly designers make simple stuff like linking buttons. For anything more advanced, I really can't care for them, stick with AS2 - nothing wrong with it - or get a programmer. I ask an animator to help me out with graphics that's above my skill level, why should they nerf the coding part of flash at our expense? Or what are you suggesting?

[Boombanguk]

this argument is obviously split down the non Flash developers who then came to Flash because of AS3 and the original designer/developers who have always used Flash on the other....now maybe it's just me but I would of thought Adobe would of leaned towards their original user base and made things more geared towards the designer/developer, but this is obviously not what they have done with their last version of Flash. Instead they have gone after new markets and tried to grab all the non flash developers and bring them into the fold as well, and that's all fine and dandy, but they shouldn't of done it at the expense of the original main body of users.

I program with OOP all the time with AS2, I love being able to use classes etc and I understand all that to a certain degree, but I also love being able to do really simple things simply! AS3/Flash 9 just seems to make hard work of very basic tasks, and is very counter intuitive to a designer/developer.

There's nothing wrong with having a sophisticated language built into Flash, the more power it has the better it will be we are all agreed on that. But the way you use that language to get to the power in Flash has to be more basic, so the bulk of Flash users (designer/developers) find it easier to do cool things (in our case games), if that means it makes the Flash player slightly less efficient, is that the end of the world?

I love having the OPTION of having access to the real guts of the player (bytes/bits/pixels), but the basic operations we all want to use (basic setting up of a game, putting stuff on the screen, duplicating things, file operations etc) need to be real easy to setup.

For whatever comes next in Flash, they need to think first and foremost about the designer/developer. There's no point having cool new things in a Flash player if most people (i.e designers/developers) never get to use them. AS3/FP9 has power and is capable of really cool things (I'm thinking Pv3d and box2d here) but how many games are out there that really make use of them? 99% of Flash games are still happy with AS2/FP8. I would love to do a game using those libraries, but I just don't have the time to really get into them. So, lets have cool features, in the player, but lets make them easier to use and mess around with!

[5TonsOfFlax]

[...]99% of Flash games are still happy with AS2/FP8.

Coincidentally, 99% of Flash games suck. This is not necessarily the exact same 99% though.

[Boombanguk]

ok, as soon as you write a line of code you are "programming", you have stopped designing at that point. So what problems does a "programmer" have that cannot be solved using OOP? It was designed to primarily solve problems.

so my question is, if a designer starts to program (thus becoming a programmer) why does he/she need special help? Why do I (someone who does more programming than design) need to learn how to use a language and a designer (who does less programming than design) not need to?

a programming language is a language, you don't half learn a language and tell everyone you can speak it. You continue to learn the language until you can speak it, so you can order those tasty snails at an authentic french restaurant and not get angry when frogs legs come out.

let me ask you, since the release of AS3, has the quality of flash work about the web diminished or heightened?

Ha, I just saw this post. Hell where do I start. As soon as you write a line of code you stop designing? what? I wouldn't call myself a hardcore code by a long way but even I know that there are such things as design patterns in programming, structures etc which is very much "designing" but that's not even my main point....I'm a designer........developer........I use .......Flash.....which is capable of what? design.......and development....both aspects work in combination.......so like I said....whatever the issue is I'm trying to do in Flash, my first thougth is hmm...I can create this graphic...maybe animate it a bit on the timeline..maybe add in some code.....etc etc....I don't try to solve all problems on the timeline with tweens because that would be crazy and wasteful when I could also use some code, likewise I don't think ooo I need to solve this issue completely in code when I can do something in 5 seconds with a tween that would take me 5 hours to work in programming. I'm all about the most efficient way to get a job done, I don't care if that means using tweens or code, but usually it means using both.

You seem to think all us "designers" are thick haha......and we need "special" help for us to program?........well put it this way, we were doing fine before AS3/FP9 came along!...and it was US that got Flash to where it is today, not all the non-Flash developers who were off doing something else

I think you make a good point with your final comment "let me ask you, since the release of AS3, has the quality of flash work about the web diminished or heightened?" But...the only thing I would say to that is that yes SOME stuff has gotten better.......usually the stuff that impresses the most is the physics/3d stuff.....but like I said in my last post...how much of that is out there? compared to everything else? and from a games developers point view how many games are out there that use that? not many that I know of.....so from taking that into account, is all the extra power been worth alienating designer/developers or at least making their lives harder? I don't think it was.

It's all about balance, with the next version they need to address the balance somewhat.

[Boombanguk]

Coincidentally, 99% of Flash games suck. This is not necessarily the exact same 99% though.

Umm I dunno if 99% suck haha........but even if that was true, i don't think it's the fault of the AS2 or FP8. (WARNING pimping on its way)...my earth defence game is all AS2/FP8, came 2nd place in the mochiads/rockstar judged comp, and has had god knows how many plays (probably way over a million)..so I think it's more about the designer/developer then the technology.....AS2/FP8 is pretty powerful I love it

[5TonsOfFlax]

No, I didn't mean to imply that it was the fault of the tools used. But I'm of the firm belief that most people are perfectly happy to **** out a half-baked game, throw it up on a site and hope to recieve a cut of some ad revenue. We should not let these people influence the future direction of Flash. In fact, I'm happy AS3 alienated a great many of them. Now, using AS3 doesn't automatically make your products good, but I do think that a higher barrier to entry is fine.

This probably makes me seem elitist. Guilty as charged.

[newblack]

@tomsamson
can you please stop making the unity argument? everyone (else) who's mentioned performance has done so in the context of the flash player. i'm not saying unity isn't the cat's pajamas, but c'mon.

there does seem to be some creepy, evangelical thing when it comes to the rather abstract notion that AS3 is worse; that it's harder to learn- worse for prototyping... These aren't easily quantifiable values. Let alone from a group of people who've spent a small lifetime with the language's predecessors!

i haven't used the authoring tool in a long time, and i hear complaints that CS3 is not intuitive. i don't know if i have some learning impediment, but i remember the experience (mx 2004) as frustrating, bewilderingly backwards and awkward. it does a lot of fun stuff, but it's awkward as ****- always has been.

[tonypa]

I have to disagree on the "more powerful language means better games". For example Director, its more powerful then Flash in nearly every way and yet it is pretty much dead. Even the people who do use it, hate it. With Flash it has been quite opposite, everyone enjoyed it. The reason was not allmighty power of Flash plugin or OOP language, but because it was so very easy to get things done.

Or Java, it has been proper language for ages, with classes and stuff. We havent seen it taking over the web.

So what has Flash to offer that other languages cant handle? It used to be easier, simpler and very well combined with artistic stuff like animations. Thats where more powerful and more complex languages failed, they were simply too difficult and it took too long to learn them. Flash with its click-drag-set IDE has been ideal for people who dont want to spend years learning other languages. As we can see, Flash has been success and number of people using it is huge.

Now AS3 is different. It takes same time to learn as Director, Java or C. It doesnt combine too well with IDE-based animations. Its interactions with mouse and keyboard are awkward. And while bringing in several restrictions compared to older version, AS3 still retains all weaknesses like slow and weak plugin. So the question is obvious - why to use AS3 and not something else?

I am pretty sure Adobe will be making better IDE in next few releases while keeping the AS3 mostly intact. With F12 we may finally get back where we were with F8, meaning its again easy to use and understandable for most people. You know, IK in F10, you drag things around and it creates code automatically for you. Its same code F9 has but nobody uses because its too complicated to get it done. Im just not too sure we will have enough people interested to wait 5 years for F12 to arrive and fix the mess.

[kortex]

Seems there is a theme. And there is already movement in the direction it implies. Flex and Flash. Adobe has already started to recognize that there is a difference between how developers want to work (Flex) and how Designers want to work (Flash).

If Adobe is smart they will make the next version of Flash more designer friendly and put more of the OOP developer features into Flex.

As for this designer developer debate, there is a need for both. I prefer the development side, but have a great respect for designers who do things visually that would make me look like a bumbling child if I attempted.

I do not believe that one is "smarter" than the other. They different was of thinking and different skills.

[Boombanguk]

No, I didn't mean to imply that it was the fault of the tools used. But I'm of the firm belief that most people are perfectly happy to **** out a half-baked game, throw it up on a site and hope to recieve a cut of some ad revenue. We should not let these people influence the future direction of Flash. In fact, I'm happy AS3 alienated a great many of them. Now, using AS3 doesn't automatically make your products good, but I do think that a higher barrier to entry is fine.

This probably makes me seem elitist. Guilty as charged.

I would agree with you if there were lots of decent quality AS3/F9 games out there, but where are they?...or you are saying that the reason why there are not is because all the non hardcore coders are either too lazy or stupid to use it? haha...of course that's not the reason (although I am lazy, haha)..coming from AS1, AS2 was still a step up because it was all about OOP.and I took it to like a duck to water........it was great, and I could do cool things easily....then AS3 comes along, and the same things I was doing before now were a lot more complex to achieve and that's the main charge against AS3/F9.

The whole IK F10, creating code for you I'm not sure about to be honest, especially if the code that is created is super complex and I can't make head or tail of it.

TonyPa:

Pretty much agree with all you said