Agora o Flash tem suporte ao Action Script 3.0 e ao Flash Player 9.0 =D
“A preview of the next release of the Flash authoring tool, scheduled for release in 2007, extends the capabilities of Flash Professional 8 to include support for the new ActionScript 3.0 language in Flash Player 9.”
“About ActionScript 3.0
ActionScript 3.0 is a powerful, ECMAScript-standard object-oriented programming language that marks an important evolution of the language and capabilities of the Flash Platform.
A number of additions to ActionScript 3.0 are straightforward to discover and use, and make programming significantly easier than in previous versions. For example, by repackaging commonly used classes and objects as more easily-accessible APIs, we’ve provided faster, more direct access to the functionality you need for your applications. Other additions, like regular expressions and E4X support, make working with XML much faster and more natural. The new ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2) runs ActionScript 3.0 code, and includes an optimized compiler, redesigned from the ground up to run applications even faster. Lastly, an improved Flash Player API includes objects and functions to access player-specific functionality.”
http://labs.adobe.com/
confira algumas novidades neste artigo do Developer Center
ActionScript Technology Center
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/