Aral Balkan

I've just started looking through the open source AS2Lib project. My initial reactions are mixed. There is some work towards implementing basic reflection which I find interesting (I had implemented a similar method as part of the MooseDoc documentation system for AS1) but also certain additions that I find quite redundant. For example: Do we really need to implement the Iterator pattern in AS2?

It's understandable that someone coming from Java who wants to make AS2 feel more like Java would want an iterator since they are used quite frequently in Java to loop over collections. AS (and thus AS2) has a for...in loop -- a construct that Java does *not* have (the latest version did get a rudimentary version of it but it is nowhere as powerful as the one in ActionScript.)

I am all for taking the best of what Java (and Smalltalk/Java-based design patterns in general) have to offer and implementing them in AS2 (as our Ariaware RIA Platform will attest to) but I am quite opposed to the idea of blindly implementing *every* Java pattern in ActionScript.

Let's not forget that AS and Java are very different beasts. As much as we put powder and rouge on ActionScript to make it appear class-based (ActionScript 2), it is at heart a prototype-based language -- and that has real advantages at times.

Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, class-based languages are not any more or less object-oriented than prototype-based ones. The term is *Object*-oriented programming for a reason. The defining characteristic is the use and interaction of objects not their templates. In fact, one may argue that classes are an external entity in a purely object-oriented approach and one would be right. To contrast, prototype-based languages deal only in objects.

That is not to say that class-based languages don't have their advantages. Those advantages mainly stem from removing much of the rope that prototype-based (or object-based) languages give you to hang yourself with. In a large-scale development environment the flexibility of the development language is not the main concern, with other factors such as maintainability and scalability playing a much more important role. It is because of this that we use AS2 in our projects at Ariaware.

Also remember that ActionScript is a *scripting* language and "scripting" -- although others may tell you otherwise -- is *not* a dirty word. Programming languages such as Java and scripting languages like ActionScript are both tools. They both have a place. They exist because they are useful and fill a need. They continue to exist as long as they are useful and the most useful for any given task usually become the most popular. There is a reason Java failed as a client-side technology for web applications and Flash did not. Yes, learn from Java but please don't try to implement Java in AS2 and thereby add unnecessary bloat to your applications. The web is still a low-bandwidth medium for most users and, as Macromedia will tell you with regard to the Flash Player, every byte is valuable!

I hope this doesn't come across as a scathing critique of AS2Lib because that is not what is intended. I've only had time to perform a cursory glance around the packages and this entry has focused on a single issue that happened to catch my eye. Quite the contrary, it's great to see an active open-source effort along these lines in the Flash community (though I would have preferred it had the code been released under an MIT/BSD-style license.)

Comments

• Hi Aral,
  it wasn't our intention to rebuild classes from Java but to offer valuable functionalities Java maybe too offers.
  I just find it more readable to iterate over a Stack or other data holders using an Iterator than a for..in loop or something similar. If you'd for example build a Stack and wanted to be able to iterate over it using the for..in loop you had to expose much of the inner structure and thus reducing flexibility.
  We also wanted to attract as much programmers as possible. That means that a broad spectrum of funtionalities must/should be supplied including the functionality to iterate over data holders using an Interator.
  The one's who like it can use it and the others don't have to care about it.
  
  Cheers Simon

  by Simon Wacker on 2004-06-25 22:23:49

• I would be interested in hearing an updated critique from Aral. Now that the project has matured a bit, is it better? With the advent of AS3, is this project even relevant? My hope is that this is still a viable AS2 framework for those of us who plan to work in Flash 8 for another couple of years.

  by Brian Busche on 2006-07-28 21:35:12

• I have worked extensively with both AS3 and AS2 and every framework I could get my hands on. as2lib is the best tool I've seen so far... by far. But my judgement is perhaps clouded by the fact that my main has been C++, Java, Ruby etc, not Flash until recently. So with all due respect, it seems that Aral's take on as2lib represents a misunderstanding of the core problems as2lib Spend some time working with the very finest frameworks in the java or C# world, like Spring (springframework.org), and then as2lib will make a lot more sense. OK, to be fair, Aral wrote his post in 2004, when as2lib was not mature, and few people really got Aspect Oriented programming, IoC containers etc. Simon says "those who like it can use it". The sad fact is that in the Flash world it's really more about "those who get it WILL love it", but few do. The Actionscript culture is dominated by script kiddies, and that's ok for most projects. It's a real shame that as2lib has died. I'll say it again, it's BY FAR the best project I have seen in the Actionscript world. Simon his crew are in a league of their own...

  by Pondus on 2008-01-10 00:40:37