Flash CS3

Just recently I got flash CS3. It has many exciting new features, but I'm having mixed feelings.

For one thing, ActionScript 3.0 is... urm... really different. I liked the way AS2 was - fast development, and easy to write. But then... when it comes to AS3.0, everything changed. So different,

The movieclip hierarchy is now a completely different package. For example, instead of createEmptyMovieClip(), you call "var my_mc = new MovieClip();" and then "myParent.addChild(my_mc);"

Event handling is also different. The ECMAScript-style "my_btn.onrelease = function()" is obsolete in AS3.0. You now have to create a function "function my_btn_release()" and then "my_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, my_btn_release);" It's cumbersome and time consuming.

Also, lots of freedom and advantage of AS2 is now gone. Variable typing is necessary, and it is also necessary that no variable referenced is undefined.

The only major improvement is... performance, sometimes by 5 folds or even 10 folds. I consider it really good, but seriously, flash applets rarely need such high performance. I mean, it certainly opens up possibilities for things such as 3D rendering and bitmap manipulation. However, for most needs, AS2 will be faster to develope for small program complexities. *hope it doesn't become deprecated in the future*