ActionScript is the
ScriptingLanguage used in
MacromediaFlash. Because it is closely based on ECMAScript, it has many of the same strengths and weaknesses expressed in
JavaScriptRocks and
JavaScriptSucks.
Short history of
ActionScript
- Flash 2: Basic, simple "actions" like moving to a specific frame of an animation
- Flash 4: Introduced variables, control flow, CGI communication
- Flash 5: Reorganized language to be more similar to JavaScript
- Flash 7: Introduced classes, methods, and inheritance (ActionScript 2.0)
ActionScript 3.0 is currently in public alpha, and introduces the following:
see
http://labs.macromedia.com/.
There have been some efforts to build a
TestingFramework for
ActionScript (to be called
AsUnit, of course), but so far nothing has come of it.
There is a Wiki devoted to
ActionScript at
http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/flashcoders-wiki/index.php
See
http://www.actionscripts.org http://www.flashkit.com
There is now a rather nice
TestingFramework for
MacromediaFlash 7 (Flash MX Pro 2004) called AS2Unit. It is specifically designed for the above version of Flash since it includes project level functionality, source code control, etc.
It's fantastic to see the powerful (if poorly specified) ECMAScript language used outside of web design. Would that it were being used somewhere where it isn't specifically for the use of non-programmers, resulting in the same sort of crud:
for(i = 0; i < num_boxes; i++){
box = eval("root.myBox" + i);
box.text = eval("boxText" + i);
}
See
http://www.as2unit.org/
CategoryProgrammingLanguage