[worldKit-dev] AS3 / Flex Version?

[Mikel Maron]

Hi

I have two concerns. First, the penetration of FP 9 (required to run AS 3.0) is slightly lower (10-15%) than FP 8. I suppose this isn't such a big deal, since upgrading is so easy .. but I'd want the worldKit download to be packaged with SWFObject (http://osflash.org/flashobject) so that requiring FP 9 is easier/cleaner.

More of a concern is the lack of an AS 3.0 open source compiler. It's been a long time intention to remove any dependencies on the commercial Flash IDE, and provide tools to do a pure OS compile of Flash -- not out of idealism, but simply to make development of worldKit more accessible/free and because the open source tools are more developer oriented. More "developer oriented" also means harder to get started, and I haven't yet worked out that entire pathway (you can see the progress so far in trac). MTASC, the top OS flash compiler, will not do AS 3.

On the plus side, AS3 and FP9 have significantly better performance, some neat new features, a stronger language and do give access to all the Flex developers. I honestly haven't been watching too closely the development of Flex, so can't say have much of a benefit to worldKit that could be -- would be nice to know if there's demand and what specific benefits Ian and Bill see from Flex. There's no dependence on anything 3rd party (zoomify dependency was removed).

We should also consider that there's a large number of bugs and features, and how should AS 3 balance against those?

I see our options as sticking with AS 2.0, going completely to 3.0, or third option (maybe more painful?) to maintain two branches of worldKit for 2.0 and 3.0. 

Mikel

----- Original Message ----
From: Ian Mayo <IanMayo at freenet.co.uk>
To: worldkit-dev at lists.brainoff.com
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 9:49:23 AM
Subject: Re: [worldKit-dev] AS3 / Flex Version?

Hi all

a few weeks ago Bill Thorp polled for interest in porting worldKit to
Flex/ActionScript 3.0 (copied below).  "Updating" the software in this
way matches my aspirations for furture use of worldKit.

Bill: did you have any positive feedback off-list?
All (esp Mikel):  I'm interested in any opinions regarding the pros
and cons of this upgrade.

- Do members of the community look forward to adoption of Flex?
- Are there any features/3rd party libs that couldn't be ported?  (zoomify?)
- Would in ease/complicate worldKit maintenance/adoption?

cheers,
Ian.


> Hello!
> I was curious if anyone has tried to or successfully ported WorldKit to Flex
> or ActionScript 3.  If not, I was interested if anyone would like to help port it
> to Flash 9 / AS3 with me.
> - Bill Thorp
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