Tuesday, 6 September 2011

Actionscript vs Javascript


ActionScript is the primary programming language of Adobe's Flash Platform.
Flex is an Open Source SDK (Software Development Kit) for building Flash Platform Applications. The Flash Platform runtimes are primarily Adobe AIR and and the Adobe Flash Player browser plugin.
The Flex SDK includes a command line compiler and an ActionScript UI Framework. The UI Framework would be similar, at a high level, to something like JQuery. Most people use Flex as a generic term to refer to all things Flex without specifying "Flex Framework" of "Flex Compiler".
Adobe also provides a commercial IDE named Flash Builder which is used by many to build Flex applications. The 60 day trial you saw was probably for Flash Builder. However, you are more than welcome to use the command line compiler as part of the open source SDK without a purchase of Flash Builder.
JavaScript on the other hand is a language implemented inside web browsers; primarily for modifying a web page without having to reload the whole page.
Both languages are ECMA compliant; so share very similar syntax. The object model would be radically different, though.
 You wouldn't be able to use ActionScript to modify an HTML page's DOM. But, you can use ActionScript to modify and extend the display hierarchy of a Flash movie (SWF).

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