ActionScript 3 in other runtimes besides Flash?

Question

I find ActionScript 3 one of the best high level dynamic languages out there, but because it only runs in Flash/Flex/AIR (to my knowledge) its uses are fairly limited.

Are there alternative and/or generic runtimes available which would allow running it on a server, or on the desktop without the Flash API? I suppose not, but is there a change this will happen in the (near) future? Would they be from Adobe or open source? Is the latter possible regarding licencing and patents?

Or going back to the ECMAScript roots, are classes and such going to come back to ECMAScript (and perhaps Javascript) and its implementations such as SpiderMonkey/Rhino?

Answer 1

Best thing on offer at the moment is HaXe. The language is nearly identical to ActionScript 3.0 but also allows you to target various platforms, including PHP, C++, Flash and NekoVM. Not only that but it improves upon ActionScript 3.0 by adding things like generics, inlining, and directives.