NYCPHP Meetup

[Rob Marscher]

On Feb 12, 2010, at 1:06 PM, Gary Mort wrote:
> I've never been able to justify buying a big flash developer package just to play around with flash....
> But from what I've skimmed, flex/air means you can use the compiler and don't need the big full flash developer app..
> Is that true?  And if so, what would I need to play around?

Yes, it's true.  You'll need the Flex SDK - http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

The Flex Builder is a commercial product that is the easiest thing to use to build Flex/Air projects, but you don't need it.  You can code mxml and actionscript and compile it on the command line.

There's also a pretty big community of people that have open source tools for all sorts of stuff related to flash development:
http://osflash.org/projects

There's even an open source actionscript compiler but it only works with actionscript 2:  http://osflash.org/mtasc

Ultimately, if you get serious about creating flash stuff, I think you'll probably want the commercial products from Adobe.  They usually offer 30-day trials of their products which could be enough time for you to play around, but the open source stuff is definitely another good way to get your feet wet without making an investment.