About a month ago I got an email from
More info about SWFAddress can be found on Rostislav's blog, the SWFAddress website, and Sourceforge. I highly suggest you subscribe to the mailing list to be the first to hear about updates and new releases.
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The more I code in AS3 the more I want to be able to use it as a server side programming language - mainly as a replacement for PHP. I might be missing something, but at first glance, I don't see any reasons this wouldn't be possible with a little effort from Adobe.
Let's look at the current manifestations of ECMAScript 4, the standard on which ActionScript 3 and the new version of JavaScript are based. There is Flash/Flex (SWF) with delivery to the web browser via a plug-in, JavaScript for direct interaction with the web browser, and AIR (Apollo) for desktop delivery. The only missing piece is server-side deployment, a fact of which I'd bet Adobe is well aware.
PHP is a great server-side language which I use very often, but every language has its own nuances, and switching continuously between PHP and AS3 often opens the door for several small bugs due to the syntactical differences.
As a framework for how much effort it would take to port AS3 for server-side usage, let's look at how PHP5 and AS3 compare on key web development factors. These core features are supported in both PHP5 and AS3:
- MySQL/database integration (PHP built-in, AS3 through classes)
- Open source and free
- Extendable (PHP through plugins, AS3 through classes)
- Large developer community
- Class-based development possible (Full OOP in AS3)
So with most of the features needed already included in AS3 or written by the community, why not take the extra step and port it to the server side? I'm sure Adobe doesn't want to sell Coldfusion 8 short, so there is that corporate hurdle. I could see it being integrated with Coldfusion in a similar manner that ActionScript can be included in MXML through the usage of a code/cdata block.
All said, nothing is stopping the community from developing an open source project based around this concept. A quick search of Google reveals that at least one other person is having similar thoughts.
Would you use AS3 if it was ported for server-side usage?
Tim Wilson has just posted PressConnect, a "PHP script which interigates a WordPress database and returns posts, pages, and creates menus in an XML format."
Tim's site/blog runs a completely Flash front-end using WordPress as the content management system, so he has some experience making Flash and WordPress work together. You can even see the normal WP install at this URL.
On his PressConnect page he explains the necessary process of retrieving the data from the WP database and using PHP to format it as XML. This concept isn't exactly new, but Tim has done everyone researching the topic a favor by explaining the process in detail, creating a diagram, and posting some of the PHP code which interfaces with WP. Just another example of the Flash community giving back.
For other takes on the same idea see Arpit's blog Code Zen and Brendan Dawes' wp-xml file (link to the file is at the very end of the post).
A while back when Dave Gray, the founder of XPLANE, was in town he asked me how I would define Web 2.0. I suppose I hadn't thought about it before then, or I should say haven't tried to distill it down to something simple. I have seen and heard hundreds of definitions for Web 2.0 over the past year or so, and my response was to start spewing those definitions in hopes of tying them together for a conclusion. Obviously, that didn't go so well.
So, after some thought, I've decided on the following as my personal definition:
"Web 2.0" describes sites like Digg and YouTube, where the audience itself provides material for the Web site.
But, what does the rest of the internet community use as their collective definitions? Tim O'Reilly has claimed in the past that he coined the phrase "Web 2.0" - if you can coin something this generic. Here is Tim's definition, which takes five pages to distill. Five pages? Too long-winded. Give me the elevator pitch (at least let us at XPLANE distill is for you). Maybe his second approach is a little better:
"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")"
Based on that definition, maybe the fact is that "Web 2.0", as I stated above, is inherently generic and broad. I wonder if the term "Web 3.0" will come to have a consensus definition. But, until then, what do you think Web 2.0 means? And what do you think Web 3.0 will come to mean?
I have Joost invites to give away -- first two people to leave a comment on this blog will get an email with their invite in the next day or so.
Please be sure to enter the email address you want your invite sent to when leaving the comment. It doesn't have to be in the comment itself, just in the comment form -- that way only I'll be able to see it.
Enjoy!
P.S. - Apparently if you have an invite you are an official beta tester, but I was really just looking for their logo when I noticed they are only allowing badges like the one to the left to be used... so "official beta tester" it is!
[Update: all invites have been sent out. I'll be sure to post if more come my way.]Â
Very funny:
http://mike.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/27/633799-hacking-john-mccainÂ
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