ActionScript 3.0 overview

ActionScript 3.0 is a powerful, object-oriented programming language that signifies an important step in the evolution of the capabilities of the Flash Player runtime. The motivation driving ActionScript 3.0 is to create a language ideally suited for rapidly building rich Internet applications, which have become an essential part of the web experience.

Goals of ActionScript 3.0

• Safety: The language supports type safety so developers can write unambiguous, easily maintainable code.

• Simplicity: The language is intuitive enough for developers to be able to read and write programs without constantly consulting a reference manual.

• Performance: The language enables developers to write complex programs that perform efficiently and responsively.

• Compatibility: The language provides a short backward and forward compatibility path and a significant overlap with industry standards. ActionScript 3.0 is a dialect of ECMAScript which formalizes the features of ActionScript 2.0, adds the capabilities of ECMAScript for XML (E4X), and unifies the language into a coherent whole.

Features of ActionScript 3.0

ActionScript 3.0 consists of two parts: the core language and the Flash Player API. The core language defines the basic building blocks of the programming language, such as statements, expressions, conditions, loops, and types. The Flash Player API is made up of classes that represent and provide access to Flash Player–specific functionality

ActionScript 3.0 contains a host of powerful new features that can greatly speed the development process. Regular expression support enables a variety of powerful operations on text. ECMAScript for XML (E4X) transforms XML into a native data type, dramatically simplifying XML processing. The new Display List API makes working with visual objects far more straightforward and consistent. The standardized DOM event model cements the way those objects talk and respond to each other at runtime. These are only a few of the many new capabilities of ActionScript 3.0.