I’ve been mucking about with JavaScript to integrate it into my engine recently, and it’s been fun to mess with it at such a low level, and see the challanges that browser developers have to face in implementing the HTML5 spec. That said, I haven’t done a great deal of “pure” JavaScript yet, so that’s something I’m going to have to do at some point – yet another thing to add to the list!
But what about the other popular language that derived from ECMAScript? Can I look at that instead and bolster on another language to my tool box?
The next seven days, I’ve set myself the challenge of doing something in ActionScript 3.0 ( well, six days now, as I spent the night looking about for various things, which I’ll be describing below. )
There are reasons for this… both ActionScript and JavaScript are derived from ECMAScript, so should have a lot of common fundamentals, and both languages are very much used on the web. Learning more languages is always a good thing since as a Programmer, I will always try to use the right tool for the job and who knows when ActionScript will come in useful! Seeing how dominant it has been on the web, there’s always a possibilty of using it as the general shift to web-based apps continues. That, and being the madman I am, I always enjoy a good challange!
The seven day deadline is also to ensure I actually finish something for a change, knowing how bad I am for doing that with my outside work projects!
I also have a special restriction – which is what I spent last night researching – in that I exclusively use Linux.
Back in first year University, one of my coursework projects was to create a game in ActionScript with Flash MX 2004. The resulting mess can be seen here: Santa’s Elves. Of course, I got to use the University computers to do this, and Flash is a rather expensive Windows/Mac only program anyway… so what can I do on Linux?
I can use whatever text editor I like, and I can use Adobe’s Flex SDK ( which’ll soon be Apache Flex, as it’s currently in the incubator project ) to compile it into a Flash application. Luckily, Flash on Linux has been reasonably decent for a while now, so I shouldn’t have any problems viewing whatever I create.
So, what will I be up to the next seven days?
Well, I have to get the toolchain setup, and do some quick tests to ensure things work.
I then need to do some more advanced tests with graphics and sounds, and see how I can compile all of this into the Flash application; followed by reading files, writing files, etc.. the standard things you do when learning a new language. Then I can actually start on something.
I effectively have a few hours per day to work on this after I finish my usual work, and while two little whirlwinds calm down, get fed, and go to bed… so I reckon I’ll have about 24 hours in total to work on it. Seeing as I’ve managed to write games for LudumDare in 48 hours from near enough scratch, this should be doable!
I’ll be posting each day with what I’ve got done, as a nice little breadcrumb trail should I end up doing ActionScript on Linux again – hence the tagging on The Quest.
