Thanks!

Martin

I have being using Flash for 14 years, before it was even called Flash.

However the new evolution of the program is the biggest step back I have ever seen with any software.

I don’t understand why Adobe could not integrate even the AS2 code to work within the AS3 code in the environment/architecture. For the cost of the product I would have thought that users should have at least being able to continue with what the know.

Upgrading to Flash CS3 for the price and having to learn the whole thing over, makes no sense.

I do understand some of the basic logic with AS3. However the biggest change that has killed the product for me is being unable to interact directly with the main timeline and stage.

Something as simple as calling a keyframe on the main timeline is impossible.

I’m a typical designer so programming is a real struggle for me. I can just about manage basic PHP and I would absolutely love to be able program using ActionScript 3.0 but – despite trying to learn from a pretty good book – I just get completely lost. Then, I get frustrated, throw my hands in the air and say “life’s too short for this”.

It’s just the way I am… (I also have trouble learning Italian, but that’s another story).

The ‘old’ days of basic ActionScript were, as others here have pointed out, beautiful. It was easy – and logical – enough for impatient designer-types like me to dabble without pulling hair out.

Over the past few days I’ve been reading about OOP from various sources – from Java to Objective-C tutorials. The irony though is that the concept of objects in itself is very visual so should make it a breeze for someone like me with only half a brain. The thing is, even when I’m convinced I’ve finally “got” the theory, I dive into AS 3.0 and get completely lost. I have to import a class, add an object and handler just to do something.

If I had to do all this shit to, well, shit, I’d have to have a ‘bathroom’ class, a ‘toilet’ object, an ‘ass’ handler and ‘crap’ variable (representing the varying sizes and shapes). I want to just goToAndShit().

There just seems to be so many steps to do something that really should be simple.

Having said that, I understand completely why we now have AS 3.0… Flash needed to go this way. It has just alienated people like me though I think.

Someone else here said that JQuery is great for designers – and I would agree completely. It does all the hard work for you and the documentation is easy to understand.

I want a Flash that does things for me. If Apple had control of Flash it’d be like Motion – and that’d be a wonderful thing I think. (Is that what LiveMotion used to be like?)

I want to drag a behaviour to an object to make it hover, fly off the screen, explode or whatever else. I don’t want to learn – and type (and debug) ten lines of code to do something so ’simple’.

I love Flash but given the simple things I want to be able to do, JQuery – and even CSS animation – looks like the future to me and they’re easy enough for me to do without a degree in rocket science.

I don’t care about code, coding, AS1, AS2, AS3, AS-whatever. However, I do care the code works. I’m not interested in the How or Why, or what an array is, or what a function is; I’m a designer, not a developer. I’m happier in a LiveMotion environment where stupid nonsense like instance names are automatically taken care for me. This is why I use LiveMotion and not the “F” word you acquired from developer-centric Macromedia.

Take care of me. Treat me like a designer who has no desire to be a programmer and who holds little -to-no interest whatsoever regarding the machinations of code.

You want AS to be easy to learn? make it completely transparent. Or, better still, make a new application, call it “Flash Elements” and stuff it full of pre-coded widgets, AS whatsits, AS2 doodads and AS3 what-do-you-call-its. But don’t ask me to code anything. Oh, make sure the canvas is vector based too. Heck, while you’re at it, recompile Livemotion 2.0 and release it under Open Source Flash so we can use it on Haiku OS.

Well, you did ask…

Hrududu

If you have one and not the other what you end up with is a person.

I don’t think I have met a single person who wholly understands the concepts behind OOP enough to be able to really compose the value in AS3 (or any other language) and ALSO be able to create a design so compelling that it ends up on BestOfFlash.

The inverse is true also…I don’t think I have met a designer who wholly understands how to leverage the power behind true OOP.

I am sure there are some out there…but I am also sure they are few and far between, and I hope they are rolling in dough and having their toes licked.

However…I doubt that is the case.

I am an artist who has learned to think like an engineer…but not a great engineer because I am still an artist. An artist creates just like a programmer ( or engineer ), but ultimately it is for two different purposes. An engineer creates because he knows he can make something better functionally…but an artist creates because he can make something aesthetically better.

That being said, Da Vinci is the first one who comes to mind that would meet the mold.

If you want to be able to teach visually inclined people how to understand such a concept as abstraction…you really need to be a strong visual communicator, a tutorial isn’t gonna cut the mustard.

An artist knows how to break something into smaller tasks…but he doesn’t worry about the technical…he just does it. A programmer is the same but with a different medium.

Use grammar, visuals, real-world examples which are labeled with the concepts of OOP. Because ultimately that is the notion which is being asked in this posting…can a person who has learned how to do something in a non-restrictive environment ( like AS2 ) really understand how to produce content which is dependent upon more than a timeline and stop() and play() functions?

Well this makes me think that programmers are sometimes as autists as rain man, the world should care about them but they don’t want to adapt themselves. And it’s an insult towards autists, I shouldn’t compare autists to stupid programmers.
I am one, programmer, but I tend to think about the user of my code or programs.
I used to teach flash programming to graphic designers who wanted to do some interactivity… now with as3 they are dead lost. I try not to screw them up with OOP and design patterns, which is absolutely away from their day to day needs.
Now I almost think that I have to give up, and teach only to engineers and scientists.
Plus no converter from Adobe to translate as2 to basic as3, even not optimized means “we don’t care, you should start rebuilding your framework or adopt ours”.

Does Adobe think that we as developpers, teachers and so on are sheeps ?
Why should we have to rebuild everything just to stick with Adobe’s new specifications and without help from Adobe ?

I think the key is in eliminating any previous knowledge, then setting the right INCENTIVES for migrating or learning AS3, for me it was Speed.

FIND THE INCENTIVES

I find the Flash IDE action panel pretty good I have about a million lines of code written by me, and sofar no problems…

I’ve never used flex thou.

AS2 is history and so is Flash for non coders… Flash is not so simple anymore and not so ubiquous anymore…