I love working in the Flash IDE, but man, the compiler sucks a huge amount of balls.
After experiencing the Flash IDE compiler flunk out on compiling a class more than 1.5 megs (a 20,000 polygon model in AS3 format), I decided to test the Flex compiler.
Flash flunks out consistently compiling code of this magnitude, just giving an “error optimising byte code” message and producing a defunct SWF of 2kb or so.
Flex (via FD) compiles 40,000 polygons (a couple of 20,000 poly models at over 2 megs each) in about 4 seconds, everytime, no problem at all.
I also decided to benchmark the compilers in terms of the byte code they produce. As far as I can see they produce the same byte code, and it certainly performs identically, I tested function calls, conditionals, calculations, data access, array access etc etc.
So why on earth is the Flash compiler so utterly puny compared to the Flex compiler? They do the same thing, Flex just happens to do it much faster and much better.
I’m now going to continue to use the IDE to write code and compile image libraries etc, but I’ll have to use Flex to compile all my 3D models.
