When we get the source for Flex 3.6, have resolved legal issues, patched missing features etc, I'm expecting that we will make a 3.7 release. I'm assuming most people would prefer we concentrated on Flex 4 and plans for Flex 5, rather than on developing Flex 3 further. To that extent, I plan on submitting a Flex 3 patch that can neatly be described as:
/private/protected/g Because of the poor structure of Flex 3, inheritance is the only way to create new components. Being unable to override behaviour of the parent component causes lots of hacks, copying and pasting of code from grandparent classes etc. All these issues could be fixed by making everything protected. As (I assume) we only plan on creating bug fix future releases of Flex 3, tying our hands with the extra contractual requirements of protected members shouldn't be a problem. This suggestion applies only to Flex 3. Doing this with Flex 4 would be a big mistake IMO. And if we design Flex 5 right, it'll become a complete non-issue with that release. Before I undertake this work, I want to check that the committers won't veto it. So I wanted to get people's views on the matter now. David.
