Using Flash Runtime as Platform (similar to JVM / CLR)

Question

Does anyone know whether any compilers exist to produce programs that will run on the Flash runtime from source code other than Flex?

i.e. similar to how Groovy, Scala, etc compilers generate bytecode for the JVM.

Answer 1

You mean "other than ActionScript 3". Flex is an AS3 framework for building RIAs.

Adobe has a project called Adobe Alchemy which provides tools to compile C/C++ code and run it in the AVM (ActionScript Virtual Machine).

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/

There may be others, but I can't remember off of the top of my head.

Answer 2

Actionscript is a strict superset of javascript, so that's an obvious one to mention first. So the AS compiler can consume javascript directly.

This provides you with access to such "languages" as jQuery, extJS, etc.

Answer 3

You can look at OpenLaszlo, a flex alternative, which compiles down to the flash runtime:

www.openlaszlo.org/

Answer 4

JDK or the Java Development Kit is a set of a Java compiler, a Java interpreter, developer tools, Java API libraries, documentation which can be used by Java developers to develop Java-based applications.

JRE or the Java Runtime Environment is a minimum set that includes a Java interpreter, Java API libraries, Java browser plug-in, which make up the minimum environment to execute Java-based applications.

The JVM or Java Virtual Machine is the core of the Java platform and is a part of both the JDK and JRE that translates Java bytecodes and executes them as native code on the client machine.

JDK includes a JRE as as subset.