ActionScript 3.0 is designed to address the following goals:
- Safety: The language supports type safety so developers can write unambiguous, easily maintainable code.
- Simplicity: The language is intuitive enough for developers to be able to read and write programs without constantly consulting a reference manual.
- Performance: The language enables developers to write complex programs that perform efficiently and responsively.
- Compatibility: The language provides a short backward and forward compatibility path and a significant overlap with industry standards. ActionScript 3.0 is a dialect of ECMAScript which formalizes the features of ActionScript 2.0, adds the capabilities of ECMAScript for XML (E4X), and unifies the language into a coherent whole.
