Yeah, you read it well…

Forget about ECMAScript 4 and stuff you may have learned while using language based on its draft ( yeah for instance AS3, Javascript 2.0 ). The ECMAScript 4 has been reject in favor of small changes to ECMAScript 3.1. This has been decided at the Oslo meeting.

Here are the main conclusions( check the post on the mailing list ):

So yeah, goodbye package, goodbye namespace, …
As everyone, I was pleased that Adobe based AS3 on a standard, but now that ECMAScript won’t be, what will happen to AS3?

Adobe plans was to deliver a language based on a standard. So will they drop package, namespace and all ES4 features to meet the ES3.1 requirement and so step back? Or maybe try to find another standard close enought to ECMAScript 4 to base AS4 on? Or just continue developing their ( now ) “own” language?

In any cases, that’s just sad. Sad for all the developer who have invested time into this draft, sad for all the companies that bet on it and sad for user who have learned it…

And ( I didn’t wan’t to put this in my post but can’t help it ) you can probably thanks a big company that has a browser having 80% of the market that insisted they would never support EcmaScript 4

Sources:
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es4-discuss/2008-August/003400.html
http://ejohn.org/blog/ecmascript-harmony/
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-screwed-by-ecmascript.html
http://joshblog.net/2008/08/13/how-will-ecmascript-harmony-affect-actionscript-3/

Update
Here is Adobe answer.
http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2008/08/blog_entry_dated_81408_715_pm.html
They will continue AS3 based on ECMAScript 4 and push it forward.

Yes, finally!
The book will be printed by Pearson. For now though, just in french.
You should post comment here to thanks Thibault and to ask for an english version ( maybe if there is tons of people asking for an english version, Pearson will translate it in )
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Gilles Bertrand gives us some tips on how to use your favorite framework with flex.
Check it out here ( for english people just check the mxml file )
That’s nice…
I was wondering how lowRa could be integrated in Flex, and have started looking for other frameworks. But it seems I won’t have to change anyway.
So thx Gilles for sharing this
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I thought I’ve talk about this one already but looking in my archive I haven’t been able to find it.
SOooo.
This is an excellent french book “Pratiques d’Actionscript” from Thibault that you can find here
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It’s been a while since I blogged. Working like hell and have no time for anything else :/
But I had to talk about the initiative of Mike Chambers and the tostring.org website.
The purpose of this website will be to list the open source books available on the net and also translate them into non-english language.
Check Mike post here
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Hello,

A quick note to let you know that the Liquid Component done by Didier ( http://bytearray.org ) have been released yesterday.
Go and check them (more…)

Ok, usually I don’t like taking news from other people but this one is kinda cool, plus it’s a reminder for myself too…
So, seen here and sending to the livedoc here it shows that the flex 3 compiler now support conditional compilation…
That’s nice

Ok, I’ve been telling everyone about those component but never put the info on my blog,
so here it is ( moreover it seems that when you’re advertising them on your blog you may have them earlier for testing - if you’re reading this Didier )

Check it out
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Hello there,

The 1st of December was the launch of a website I’ve been working on : The Lowdown.
This website is part of the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s national depression initiative (NDI), which aims to help young people recognize and understand depression, and encourages them to seek appropriate help, or puts them in touch with trained professionals, thus to reduce the impact of depression on the lives of New Zealanders

To create this website we have used lowRa and Sandy 3 so was done using AS3.
The site is plugged on the Silverstripe CMS, using amfphp 1.9.
Thing is both of those AS3 libraries, at the time the project started, were still in beta, and not all the features needed to develop the website done yet.
First in lowRa was missing the assembler which helps you to load dlls ( assets, classes ) and build the application at runtime ( create plugins / view / custom objects, … )
Second, Sandy didn’t get any mouse interaction on the texture level, ie interacting with InteractiveObject but also text links ( not that easy when you’re actually clicking on a snapshot of a display object )
So the first task has been to develop those. This project helps as well adding other features / fix in those libraries.
I’m quite happy to see they’ll be integrate in those libraries.
(more…)