Top five misperceptions about ActionScript 3

1. ActionScript 3 is difficult to learn

   ActionScript 3 is no more difficult to learn than any other programming or scripting language. If you are familiar with ActionScript 2, the language semantics are pretty much the same, although you will need to learn new ways of doing some common tasks. Because the ActionScript 3 APIs are more consistent, learning one new concept and API applies to multiple APIs, making it easier to use newly found knowledge to learn new features and functionality.

2. ActionScript 3 is only for object-oriented programmers

   ActionScript 3 can be used for both class-based, object-oriented programming, as well as timeline-based scripting. You can use it in whichever way is the most comfortable for you or makes the most sense for your project.

3. Targeting ActionScript 3 reduces the Flash Player base that you can target

   As of December 2008, content targeted for Flash Player 9, the first version that supported ActionScript 3, can be viewed by 98.6% of computers on the Internet.

4. You can’t write code on the timeline with ActionScript 3

   You can place code on the timeline just as you can with ActionScript 1 and 2.

5. ActionScript 2 development is faster than ActionScript 3

   While some tasks can require more code in ActionScript 3 than in ActionScript 2, overall development and maintenance time should be the same or less than in ActionScript 2.0 due to improved debugging and better compile-time error catching. Basically, in some cases there may be more code, but it will be much easier to find errors

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