ECMA4 is dead. Long live Actionscript!
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You should know right off that I’m about the least qualified person to speak about the intricacies of computer languages. But I’m going to go there anyway.
By now you’ve heard the news that ECMA 4.0 has died and been replaced by ECMA 3.1. A lot of people think it’s another power move by Microsoft and I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. Hell, it’s why they are who they are.
So here’s my two cents worth: Screw’em. I’m an Actionscript developer. I don’t use and don’t plan to use Javascript or C# or any other language for the client side. Why the hell would I? I don’t care one iota if Actionscript is standards compliant. Just make it the best frakking language it can be so that I can do my job better and faster.
John Grden pointed out that everyone seems to have it in for Adobe. So why not turn the tables. We all know that the Flash player is the most ubiquitous software EVER. Adobe, I say use it to your advantage. Wait until Flash player 11 and make sure that it and every other version of the Flash Player can’t possibly work in Internet Explorer. Lets see how long those IE numbers hold up when no one using IE can go to youTube. Yeah, they would sink like a rock.
I’m all for playing nice in the community. But when someone, Microsoft and Apple especially, do something underhanded to hurt Adobe I take it personally. I wish I had a wildly successful website just so that I could disable it in IE. Hummm, now that you mention it, maybe I can live with a 30% decrease in traffic on this blog.
Really what is ECMA any ways and why doe’s the AS3 community give a dang?
I don’t write ECMA script, I write Action Script!
I think it should be that Action Script is setting the standards and ECMA should following Action Script, after all it’s JavaScript that wishes it could be more like Action Script not the other way around.
Really why is any one other then adobe telling about how to set the standards for most installed program ever. Truly not M$ who made vista, right!?
DOWN WITH M$
@Josh, I love it: “I don’t write ECMAscript, I write Actionscript!” You preach it brother!
Sounds like a great point of view. As Actionscript developers, why should this news sound like a big problem as long as Adobe continues to improve Actionscript? There are plenty differences already with various languages. Am I missing something that should make me scared?
@Keith, everything I’ve read from the Adobe bloggers says that they won’t be taking anything out of Actionscript3 and that they will continue to improve on future versions of Actionscript.
In a way this could help Flex/Flash developers. Adobe tried to go with the standards committee approach in developing Actionscript and it bit them in the ass. Now I think it’s a great thing to go with standards as long as progress is being made in making improvements. But now they may just push forward and make future version of Actionscript the best for the Flash Player and ignore the ECMA recommendations.
I think it was a good strategy for Adobe to play nice with the Open Source/Standards supporters. But they are just a very small, albeit vociferous, community.
And, everyone is blaming this on politics between Adobe and Microsoft. Hopefully if Adobe does move away from the ECMA recommendations they’ll be able to put the blame on Microsoft. The OS/standards community hates them anyway.
“Lets see how long those IE numbers hold up when no one using IE can go to youTube. Yeah, they would sink like a rock.”
I like this idea. I like it very much.
If you drop MS for screwing up ECMA4 then you should drop Adobe - why do you think you've been writing in actionscript and not javascript? Because Adobe have fought to stop development of Javaxcrript. And they're still doing it - they've just got involved with squirrelshit having given tamarind to Mozilla.
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