Pre-Object Oriented Programming (OOP) for Actionscript, part 4
July 22nd, 2007 . by polyGeekA common discussion I’ve had with other developers about learning Object Oriented Programming in Actionscript is: for people new to OOP which is better to learn: Actionscript 2.0 or Actionscript 3.0.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
If you already know a little bit of Actionscript 2.0 and you want to expand your skill set then go ahead and learn OOP for AS2. You can then pick up AS3 when the need arises. I believe that there will be designers and developers delivering Flash projects using AS2 for years to come.
If you are a designer/developer working on small projects like creating video interfaces, or brochure type sites that are animation intensive then I suggest learning AS2.
On the other hand if you plan to work on projects like building Rich Internet Applications that can scale to include all sorts of components and using dynamic data from web services or Flash Remoting, etc. then you should think about jumping straight into AS3.
The gray area comes if you expect to be building widget type Flash projects. In that case you could go either way. You might be more productive right off the bat with AS2 and OOP but down the road you will probably want to start picking up AS3 and OOP.
The advantage to OOP in AS3 is that it is much more rigorous in how it treats code. Things that you can get away with in A2 will cause errors in AS3. And that’s a good thing because it helps you debug your code faster. The downside is that some things that are very simple to do in AS2 become a bit more involved in AS3. But things that are very code intensive in AS2 become trivial in AS3.
I hope I have helped to confuse you beyond repair. Now get to work. :-)
In part 5 of this series I’ll cover a few of the common error messages you’ll get while using classes and what they mean.
Thanks polygeek. I am new to flash development and have started working through the book ‘Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8′ although i use CS3. I had the dreaded feeling that my efforts were in vain and that id have to start all over with ActionScript 3.0. This article gives me a little confidence however that i can carry on learning AS 2.0 and then make the leap over to AS 3.0 when i have the basics down. Ideally i’d like to transfer my Flash skills into Flex one day, will this be possible? or will i need to plunge the depths of OOP?
@Pablo, I’m glad my tutorials helped. I’m about to create a video version of them so keep an eye out.
The good news is that everything you learn about OOP transfers from one language to another. I think the difference between AS2 and AS3 is like learning a spoken language and then learning to understand the same language with an accent. Same thing, different pronunciations.
I’m also going to do a video series about developing in Flex. So that should help answer your questions there.
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