ActionScript 3 was released in 2006, long after developers had already started departing the Flash ecosystem in droves and Flash fell out of favor as delivery t

ActionScript 3 was released in 2006, long after developers had already started departing the Flash ecosystem in droves and Flash fell out of favor as delivery technique for web applications. "Ajax", as we were calling it then, started to be used as the primary delivery technique for rich applications; the original Ajax essay came out in 2005 (http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/ajax-new-approach-web-applications/ http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/ajax-new-approach-web-appl...) and that's when we started reverse-engineering applications like Google Maps to build interactivity without proprietary plugins and languages.