Posted by Ben C on 10/06/07 22:35

On 2007-10-06, SpaceGirl <nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote:
> Ben C wrote:
>
>> If I understood SpaceGirl it's a superset of ECMA-262 (which _is_
>> JavaScript) with some new bits bolted on recently that look a bit like
>> Java.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript:
>>
>> With ActionScript 2.0, developers could constrain variables to a
>> specific type by adding a type annotation so that type mismatch
>> errors could be found at compile-time. ActionScript 2.0 also
>> introduced class-based inheritance syntax so that developers could
>> create classes and interfaces, much as they would in class-based
>> languages such as Java and C++. This version conformed partially to
>> the ECMAScript Fourth Edition draft specification.
>
> AS2 has been superseded. AS3 is a very strict/typed language, properly
> structured and consistent. It feels a lot more like Java than JavaScript
> (especially when when using classes, and the way you use objects).

For better or for worse. I like JavaScript more than either Java or C++.
Static typing and excessive object-orientation are over-rated-- they're
not the silver bullets they're sold as that automatically make programs
more robust and easier to maintain.

>> C++ is quite a bit different: it's a machine-oriented language with
>> mostly value semantics and manual storage management.
>
> To an extent AS3 is like this, although you are abstracted from memory
> management and direct hardware calls - you can only work within the API
> that AVM2 (the Flash Virtual Machine, inside Flash Player 9) so you are
> restricted in that respect.

Those are both good restrictions though.

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