> From: Alex Harui [mailto:aha...@adobe.com] > Sent: 10 January 2012 18:04
> MXMLC and COMPC currently leverage ASC. I believe that Flash Authoring > leverages the same ASC. Flash Authoring has no use for MXMLC > (at least, the MXML compilation). I assume you mean here that the mxmlc compiler uses code also found in the asc compiler? I didn't think asc existed as a separate executable that is called by mxmlc. When Adobe contribute first mxmlc and then falcon to Apache, we will - I assume - have the full code base to the complete AS3 source -> bytecode compilation process. Am I mistaken in this? > I don't understand how the compiler can affect the language. The compiler turns the language into bytecode. If we have control of a AVM-targeting compiler, then we are free to define the specification of the language that it compiles. > ActionScript and the VM are not being contributed to Apache. > It is just the language and runtime we are using right now. So presumably if we want to extend AS3 (with user-defined generics for example), then we'll have to rename the language to ApacheFlexScript or some such? > IMHO, language evolution is not within the domain of responsibility of this project. I completely disagree. We now have an excellent opportunity to enable the community to dictate the future of the language, based on our needs, rather than the business needs of Adobe. In fact in the future, should the community choose to, we might even divorce the Flex from the Flash runtime, at which point even the low level contraints of the AVM built-in classes would be removed. Exciting times IMO. :) David.
