I think we are falling victims to the same branding confusion that novice AS3 programmers do. Some of us use Flex to mean the SDK, others use it to mean the framework written in AS3, eventually using that SDK.
There are two distinct groups and two goals that may or may not collide. 1. (I belong in that group) Interested to develop SDK tools, AS compiler among the others. Less interested in framework, cross-compilation to JavaScript, MXML templates. 2. People who have projects they have to maintain, those projects are written in whatever Flash Builder had to offer - AS / MXML / CSS / FXG. These would be rather interested in porting their code base to JavaScript. Is there a good solution that answers both? - I'm not sure. I think that if the second agreed to use HaXe, that would be perfect, since the first group wouldn't need to deal with cross-compilation, they aren't particularly interested in. I would be even happy to give a hand on HaXe port of the framework because I like the language. How many benefits will gane those in the second group from what the first group is willing to do - I don't know, if their ultimate goal is to port their existing projects to JavaScript, probably, not much. One significant factor is: we don't know what the Adobe policy is going to be on the next compiler and how close is it going to integrate the framework into it's other products. - Looks like Adobe is building a compiler that has, again, a lot of MXML stuff coded into it, which would indicate they are interested in supporting the framework. Maybe, if they are also writing the tool that will do the AS->JS migration, this will answer the needs of the second group. I, as a representative of the first group isn't particularly enthusiastic about a can-do-it-all compiler, not very enthusiastic about the language it is written in (there was actually a C++ opensource AS3 compiler, did you know that? - I'd rather research that possibility, if I had to really write a compiler). I'm pessimistic about Adobe compiler allowing tight integration with other tools that target SWF format. - Adobe, on the other hands develops some stuff which targets non-framework related projects. Something which it dropped Alchemy opcodes for, and which was promised to be the new commercial product for game building. I think it would be a shame, if there was no OSS alternative to it. So, would be working to provide some kind of it, if that is the case. But this, probably, doesn't interest the second group at all :) Best. wvxvw
