Adobe has just announced that Flash Player 9 for Linux is now available in the Download Center. Nothing much else to say about that…Linux users rejoice!

Keep up to date with more Flash Player announcements by following Emmy Huang, product manager for Flash Player at Adobe.

Charles

That’s right, Adobe has made a move to open source code from their ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2), which is the powerful scripting engine used in the Adobe Flash Player. A very big contribution, it bodes well for web designers, web developers, and dare I say, all Internet users in general. In fact, I might be so bold as to say, with the works of Apollo in the mix, this move may also help application developers and computer users alike…but that’s a whole other post :)

For those of you that are unfamiliar as to what this all means, I’ll take some time to break it down. I’ll start with some background.

ActionScript is the programming language used in Adobe technologies such as Flex and Flash. The ActionScript Virtual Machine is the scripting engine used in the Flash Player. Particularly, the ActionScript Virtual Machine 2, or AVM2, is the scripting engine used in Adobe’s latest Flash Player, Flash Player 9. Actionscript is also an ECMAScript-based language (i.e. based on the ECMAScript language specification, 3rd edition), just as is JavaScript. If you’ve worked with either, you know that they are quite similar. So, ActionScript and JavaScript are closely related languages.

What Adobe has done is they have contributed source code from their new AVM2 to the Mozilla Foundation (now under the project name, Tamarin) with the goal that making this code open source will accelerate and grow the ECMAScript 4 Standard language specification (ES4). That’s great, if you ask me!

What does it mean for us developers?
With the efficiency and performance advances that we have with AVM2, we can expect to see this for the new JavaScript engine as well. So, previously demanding JavaScript applications may become more feasible (including AJAX applications).
Aside from performance, there are also many language features that we see with ActionScript 3.0 that are desirable in JavaScript. As they develop ES4, we can expect that JavaScript and ActionScript (already closely related), will become even more similar, so a developer can leverage the knowledge of working with either language. This standardization across languages means that our work can reach more browsers, more sites, more machines, more people. Even further, we might be able to expect developer libraries and tools that can be re-used and applied for JavaScript AND ActionScript. So, I can develop a library in ActionScript for use in Flash, but would also work JavaScript…awesome.

What does it mean for everyone?
On a larger scale, how does this move from Adobe affect everyone else? Well, first of all, working directly with Mozilla, all Internet-users can look forward to future versions of Firefox and Mozilla-based browsers with better performance when running JavaScript- and ActionScript-based applications. Again, with standardization in the languages, there can be better support for these "Web 2.0" technologies.

Most significantly, AJAX, Flex and Flash applications will become more efficient and will become even more common on the internet (I can imagine it shortly becoming a "standard" on new sites), spurring the whole "Web 2.0" buzz.

Conclusion
This is a big move for Adobe to make. It will help grow the developer communities and contribute to Internet-users in general, by "empowering the creation of even more innovative applications in the Web 2.0 world"^*. I couldn’t agree more.

^*Kevin Lynch, Senior Vice President and Chief Software Architect at Adobe

Charles

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm working on an initiative here at Adobe to reach out to student developers at school across Canada. As part of the project, we've built up a website to act as sort of a developer community for those interested in building rich and interactive applications. We've dubbed it "The Rabbit Hole", and it's located at www.therabbithole.net. It launched just a couple of days ago, so we're still building it up...taking feedback, adding and removing content, configuring settings, etc. But as of now, it's up and registrations are open, so check it out!

Charles

I am involved in a new project here at Adobe to increase Adobe's presence among students across Canada. So, as part of this project, Adobe is opening up a volunteer role for full-time students at participating universities. Eligible students can then apply to become an "Adobe Ambassador" at their respective school. As an ambassador, they will be expected to promote Adobe in any way they can, including organizing events, answering questions, contacting student groups, maintaining a blog, as well as other similar tasks. If this is something that interests you, find a more detailed description of this role via the job post on Mike Potter's blog.

Happy applying!

Charles

Hi everyone. My name is Charles Bihis, and I am currently an intern at Adobe Systems Inc. I’ve had the chance to work with some really exciting technologies that Adobe is making here, and I’ve decided to take it upon myself to blog about it. Mainly, I’ve been working with Flex, which for those who don’t know, is robust framework for developing Flash applications! It uses the same runtime, and even compiles to the same filetype, .swf. There are a lot of similarities, but also a lot of very important differences, differences that make Flex so powerful.

So, having said that, the focus of this blog will be Flex and all that surrounds it. I will post tutorials covering topics from beginner “Hello world” applications, to more advanced areas, as well as hopefully posting some of my projects and demos that I’m working on here at Adobe. Stay tuned…

Charles

*legal: The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Adobe Systems Inc.