What ECMAScript “Harmony” Means for Flash Developers

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There has been a lot of good coverage about the announcement that the ECMAScript committee is going to stop working on ECMAScript 4 and instead focus on ECMAScript 3.1. And our developer community is rightly wondering what this means. In a couple of words, not much.

While ActionScript 3 was supposed to be an implementation of the ECMA 4 standard, it’ actually still based on ECMAScript 3 and will now be treated as an extension with some additional functionality. I think in a lot of ways this shows some of the difficulty in working with standards organizations. And Adobe will continue to track the progress of ECMA, but we’re not going to start removing namespaces and packages or changing ActionScript to comply with the “3.1″ version of ECMAScript. I’m sure we’ll have more news or transparency around the next version of ActionScript when it gets close, but we want to add functionality for our developers – not take it away. If anything, this gives us more freedom to incorporate your ideas and thoughts into the language while still being a part of the ECMA committee.

I think Adobe has done a lot of good things to help the evolution of ECMAScript into a powerful language for the web. When dealing with partners and committees, you don’t always get everything you want, but it is definitely in Adobe’s best interest to equip web developers (both JavaScript and ActionScript) with a robust, powerful programming language. We’re still going to work to make that happen.

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  • http://fleximagically.com polyGeek

    Why doesn’t Adobe invite the standards organization to become a part of the Actionscript committee – which Adobe would control. Just don’t invite Microsoft! Wait, no, go ahead and invite them but to the wrong place. That would be hilarious.

  • http://www.leifwells.com Leif Wells

    I guess the only thing that I am concerned about is Tamarin. Isn’t that the rendering engine Adobe “donated” to Mozilla? Was that created for ECMA 4 or ECMA 3? Or does that even matter?

  • http://gfxcomplex.com Josh Chernoff

    to further polyGeek’s comment.

    Why is Adobe letting any one besides Adobe set the standards for Action Script. Specifically when the flash player is the most install application ever.

    But yet of all the people, who is assertively trying to set the standards??? Micro Soft, with their vista, IE 7 and their activeX junk that pollutes our industry.

    To hell with ECMA4 just like polyGeek
    says I write Action Script code. That’s what I put on my resume!

    Besides that, we all know it’s JavaScript that wishes to be more like Action Script. The sooner they start to accept that profound truth the sooner they can reap the benefits of “our” labor.

    FYI: IE 7, took 7 years to release. And what did they have to show for all their work?

  • Stephen Buckley

    Standards have become another word or way to slow down your competitors.

    Bog them down in a useless quagmire of waffle.

    Take SCORM as an example, the standard fails to allow to do anything useful, but is tied to an implementation in Javascript when 70% to 80% of Elearning is done in Flash.

    Why not define the interfaces and objects and allow people to build reference implementations.

    I am sorry this is just an attempt of a bunch of Bulmerite mediocre minds to shackle us to Windoze and Internet interferer instead of focusing on real innovation.

    The dinosaur is dead, i would rather be a furry little mammal

  • http://www.flashgamer.com Jensa

    @Josh Not sure what you’re saying here?

    > Why is Adobe letting any one besides Adobe set the standards for Action Script.

    Because Adobe chose so themselves? Adobe opted to base Actionscript on ECMA standards.

    There’s many advantages to this, the most obvious one would be that anyone that can do Javascript can learn Actionscript really fast. Keep in mind that Flash/Flex is a really small ecosystem compared to AJAX and .NET.

    The fact that WE use and love it does not mean that others do so. Basing your language on a standard does not prevent innovation through new APIs and core features. It just makes Actionscript much more approachable.

    J

  • ryanstewart

    We joined ECMA because we wanted to help make ActionScript a standard and we also wanted to help push JavaScript forward.

    I do think this frees us up a little bit to maintain our standards-centric approach while still innovating.

    @Leif, I’m not sure what the status of Tamarin is. It’s still a core part of our VM. Do you have any specific questions?

  • http://blog.natejc.com Nate Chatellier

    I was nervous that Adobe would take a step backwards with this news since you have done so in the past (e.g. removing private constructors). Such a breath of fresh air to hear this response!!

    I absolutely believe that Adobe has revolutionized the web over the last decade and that many have imitated/implemented what Adobe started. I agree that standards are important, but even more importantly, I believe that advancement is sluggish at best if you are not allowed to be innovative because it’s not included in the standard. I believe Adobe’s response is perfect: keep your eye on the standard and watch what happens, but not to the point of harming the language. Excellent. Thank you Adobe. Oh, and can we have private constructors back please? ;)

  • http://www.waq177.com/blog ethan

    I second the cautionary example of SCORM. They had a ton of really smart people work on the 2004 standard and the vast majority of content is still delivered in the older versions – 1.2 and AICC because they are “less broken.” Sequencing and navigation has caused many to go insane! The point is you need to deliver what developers need, make sure you don’t over engineer in the name of standards and avoid political inertia.

  • http://www.ejscript.org Michael O’Brien

    Thoughts on what it means for Adobe and Ejscript at: http://www.embedthis.com/blog/?p=14