Naming Conventions - MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-LEARNING ACTIONSCRIPT 2.0 IN FLASH Manual

When you are learning or teaching Flash and ActionScript
Learning how to build applications by using best practices and following coding
conventions reduces the need to relearn particular methodologies. If students learning
Flash practice consistent and better ways to structure code, they might learn the language
more quickly and with less frustration.
Consistent techniques and the following guidelines help people learning Flash, or people
working effectively in team environments. Consistent methods help you remember how you
structured your document when you work by yourself, particularly if you have not worked on
the FLA file recently.
These are only a few of the reasons to learn and follow best practices. You are bound to
discover many more when you read these best practices and develop your own good habits.
Consider the following topics as a guideline when you are working with Flash; you might
choose to follow some or all of the recommendations. You can also modify the
recommendations to suit the way you work. Many of the guidelines in this chapter help you
develop a consistent way of working with Flash and writing ActionScript code.
This chapter covers the following subjects on coding conventions and best practices:

Naming conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Using comments in your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .742
ActionScript coding conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .745
ActionScript and Flash Player optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Formatting ActionScript syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764
Naming conventions
Typically, you spend 80% of your development time debugging, troubleshooting, and
practicing general maintenance, especially on larger projects. Even when you work on small
projects, you'll spend a significant amount of time analyzing and fixing code. The readability
of your code is important for your benefit and the benefit of your team members. When you
follow naming conventions, you increase readability, which increases workflow and enables
you to find and fix any errors in your code. All programmers follow a standardized way of
writing code; this improves the project in many ways.
732 Best Practices and Coding Conventions for ActionScript 2.0