I have a simple thing to note, and that is it’s the hardcore powernerds that tend to be very vocal about things like language evolution, method and operator overloading, etc…

And all that noise makes it sound like it’s what everyone wants. However, it’s the average joe that represents 80% of the coding population, and their voice is not represented.

I’ve always been an advocate for catering towards making things easy for that kind of user.

I strongly believe that AS3 and OOP was needed for developers to advance Flash, but should not have been done at the expense of the Flash authoring environment or basic actionscript.

As a freelance designer, I have been able to make quick, simple interfaces, but now with AS3 and the authoring environment forcing me to use it with new features, I find myself more and more alienated by the environment. In other words, programming takes longer, which sometimes forces me to outsource it thus upping my costs– something I cannot always financially do.

If I have to outsource the programming, why not also consider AJAX, Silverlight, or something else? In this scenario, Flash loses its advantage.

Really, isn´t that a very limited ignorant view?
The whole discussion here and elsewhere shows that very different kinds of people use flash platform tools, there is no single usertype and to say something as you do there is just wrong.

“Likewise, most designers don’t know coding, and need a programmer to perform that task.”

That is an antiquated view and a big part of the problem: Saying we now realized there are no designers who also can or want to get things done with code, it should be like in ages past where coders code and don´t touch art and designers lay out static designs in photoshop or flash or catalyst and coders add any kind of logic to that then.
Flash and other tools and languages of its time have evolved as being something that allows each group to do each and combine em, too.
Sure you might have a classic business where there are different types of coder groups, different kinds of artists and they touch each others work as few as possible, but in this day and age for most smaller- medium size teams that is probably less and less common. I know many big agencies where they have several flash cracks who basically do one flash project after the other on their own or in small teams of 2-5, including all art, code and sound side. To my experiece its also of clear advantage that someone has a good knowledgebase in each field so he has understandings for the hows and whys.
Sure someone who only spends his time in one field can maybe exceed in that field compared to someone else who does several different kinds of things but why force people to one field if they want to and could do several for many years?

In such areas i completely disagree with your posts, i think at the end of the day AS3 will get more refined, the flash player will get more refined, silverlight will get more refined just like html 5/ canvas stuff, unity etc and at the end people will use what feels like the best tool to get the job done for em.
For some performance might be more important, for others supported platforms, for others the usability of the tool and language that allows em to get more done in less time.
I think what the discussion shows is that the vibe of “making the language more mature” ( = copying java more ) has not exactly worked out for the popularity of the language and tools; allowing people to express themselves with filters, seamless video integration etc better and with more, easier and more flexible usability than contenders seems to work out better.
To end i´ll reply to this:
”
You may sense the shift without being able to pinpoint it, but AS3 has given Adobe a larger market.
”

Really? Maybe a potentially bigger market, but in reality it looks like the one release with AS3 aswell as ones following were among those worst selling ever (maybe only the one in which AS2 was introduced sold similarly bad).
I also see more flash platform developers than ever looking around if they maybe shouldn´t play around with unity, silverlight or html 5 stuff some more meanwhile.

If you want to make all happy you have to support and evolve AS1,2 and 3 or also other languages fully, allow to make full use of the API in all and use propper hardware acceleration with all automatically for all display operations so performance is good with each.
Otherwise, well, you´ll always have one group, maybe the bigger group hating on a new release and looking around to use other stuff.

I think you are bifurcating the issue. I coded in FlashMX, and because of that experience refused to use FlashMX. The decision was made some time ago to step away from Macromedia’s ad hoc programming and pursue a more formal programming language structure (an ECMA standard, too – actually, with Flex, there seems to be two standards). Because of the work done in that direction, I have stopped bad-mouthing Flash.

Further, you have to consider the competition. MS killed Adobe’s “Javascript 2.0″ initiative. You have to ask yourself “Why?”. It is not because MS thinks JS2 is a bad idea – just the opposite. It is an extremely powerful idea, one which brings Adobe up to the level of real programming, makes it as extendible as MS’s operating system, and, with Adobe’s ubiquitous presence, allows Adobe to rule the market. You will notice that Silverlight is OO, and is trying to market itself as a Flash substitute.

Adobe is not foolish on this point. With AIR and the possibilities of platform independent desktop apps, you must have an extensible structure. E.g., I would dread making an app in Perl. OO is a structure that opens up the door to programmers. Though not designers, programmers are THE market. Look at it another way: Adobe could hold onto the “designers only” idea, but if MS and Google can give designers what they want AND give programmers what they want, then Adobe will not be staying “pure” to the creed by focusing on designers; rather, it will dissappear.

A long time ago, I learned C++ because I wanted to design 3D, and not knowing programming structure hindered me. Likewise, most designers don’t know coding, and need a programmer to perform that task. But that is growth; when an idea gets big, tasks have to be divided. Do you still want a barber to be your dentist? It’s that sort of thing. There is a lot to know now because there are a lot of possibilities. And you don’t have to know everything. Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop can be the realm of the graphics inclined. But don’t mistake this for creativity, nor the only goal.

You may sense the shift without being able to pinpoint it, but AS3 has given Adobe a larger market. This bigger workspace has more and different demands, so what it means for Adobe to be “market driven” is changing. Focusing on the graphic side as a core (putting other things on the back burner) is no longer possible, because it is no longer reflecting what Adobe *is*.

Peter, thank you for inspiring this discussion! I have to admit that I would not have thought about much of this without reading your post, and the followup comments.

As an AS2 coder though I want to stick my nose in here and say that I want the AS3 speed, AS3 timeline benefits, but I don’t want all this complicated “developer” crap that is AS3. WHY NOT keep it simple like .onClick ? Why add all this extra crap defining it as a mouse event, etc? What ELSE will it be? What ELSE can CLICK on a button other than a MOUSE POINTER?!

Same for getting a URL. Sheesh. Here’s the address, Open it in THIS window. Simple as that.

I really hate having to GUESS at what libraries need importing too. Why can’t Flash just tell me, hey, the class is missing, you need to import THIS and then do it for me?