Who would expect it to be so hard to find a good ActionScript 2 (yes, ActionScript TWO) developer these days. Our company’s main project is a big flash MMO written in AS2 long time ago. It is still popular and brings a lot of money. But people come and go, so live team department is looking for an AS2 programmer without success so far.
There’re just no AS2 developers left. And that’s obvious why. You either go mainstream (if you are decent) and learn AS3 or work for a company coding banners in frame scripts (if you are bad or don’t want to learn). Nobody stays long (if at all) in AS2 world these days. As it has been so far, people who claim to know AS2 are just bad. They don’t know AS2, they know just a bit of programming. No OOP or design patterns. I’m not saying that AS2 can be tricky sometimes and you have to be good to support a large-scale project.
Personally, I should not mention AS2 knowledge in my resume because I totally forgot it. And don’t really want to return back to those days. But if offered 2x payment raise I’d think about it.
I think it’s because all good AS2 developers are now good AS3 devs, and we’ve learned that going backwards in development is no fun. =D
Seriously though, why wouldn’t the company make the change to AS3 and set up the app for future proofing (i.e. find developers who can maintain it), not to mention the massive performance improvement, and last but not least, the added security (there’s a reason Adobe releases Flash Player security updates). If anything in Flash is dead, it’s got to be AS2 ;-)
iBrent
it’s too time consuming to rewrite the whole game from scratch to AS3. all other projects are developed using proprietary AS3 framework.
There are some good AS2 folks developing for Flash Lite, but there is probably a supply shortage there too.
I find coding for AS2 is more difficult after 2+ years in AS3.
However, I also find myself applying as conventions a lot of best practices that are enforced in AS3 and become habitual.
You will find it difficult to find anyone willing to maintain an AS2-based product for you because it is not a career-building activity – you don’t get to put it in your portfolio since you didn’t create it, and you are coding in yesterday’s language flavor.
I think it would be worth your while to make the app AS3 it is really not so hard to do if the AS2 was OOP orientated and written properly. It will be worth your while and save you lots of money in the long run.
I was very fast writting AS2.
There were too many years writing it.
It was not for me that easy to switch to AS3 (since CS3).
It was really a question of patience, although writing classes in AS2 you could still achieve some real approach to OOP.
My website is still written in AS2 and I’m postponed its upgrade for years… yes, again the patience thing added to the lack of time!
The strongest reason that I now use AS3, is not because of its oop philosophy but obviously because of the VM compiler that is clearly superior and therefore much faster.
I used to do a lot in AS2 but then switched to AS3. I’ve had to deal with some AS2 code at my work and it’s just painful because there was some OOP but it was done so poorly it hurts just thinking about it.
I can’t say much about the AS2 code I used to write. I’ve looked back at it, and it’s realllly bad. There is 0 OOP and it’s scattered between frames. I’d love to re-write it, but it’s been rock solid for 4+ years and I’m too busy with other things.
I can only hope the people that wrote your app knew what they were doing so it’s not that painful to update.
unlike many people, I’m a hardcore AS2 developer.. and I never wanted to switch to AS3. im not stubborn, now, but for many reasons I found AS2 to be better for fast small-mid projects.. and i love the way codes are spread out to frames, objects, layers and all. I’m also a PHP programmer and I understand how having code ALL IN ONE place is like candy to most programmers.. but coming from AS2 as well, I have learned to appreciate having the code attached to specific frames, and objects.. i found it SOOOOO much easier to develop that way because for example,if i wana edit code for an MC, where do i find the code?
instead of going through hundreds of lines of code to find that function that is attached to the said MC, w/c can get quite stressful to the eyes, i would simply locate that MC i wana reprogram, and find the code RIGHT THERE w/o any other UNRELATED CODE cluttering my display. This was such a good thing :( .. specially for buttons and other triggers..
w/ AS3 one will have to dig into lines of code to locate the specific line then search again to modify a line related to it and again and again..
That’s just one of the things i dont wana let go of AS2.. and ofcourse.. the ESC keys!! I mean why remove a feature that help speed up development for now reason?! i wana type stop(), i simply hit the esc key combo and there it is.. not having that for no reason in an AS3 coding environment is something I really cant understand..
Flash , w/ AS2, was a unique tool that really catered to both visual designers and coders.. but since Flash is developed by HARD CORE programmers obviously, they found it easier to relate w/ having tons of code that should be ATTACHED to different objects, all in one or few places..
Im a programmer but i hate having to go through so much codes when i dont have to in Flash AS2..
oh well, w/ AS2 being kicked off from Flash CS5, i guess it’s my last stand :(
Hi Simonov,
I do not know why you are still stuck with AS2 instead of upgrading to AS3 (except in case budget is an issue which might be the most important aspect in holding back). I have done for more than last 6 years. I have been working since false OOP introduced in Flash player 5 through to AS3 now now. I am still using AS2 as many projects can still be done faster in AS2 than AS3 for sure. If interested, do shoot me an email and we can discuss.
Swapnil