The ActionScript has the exact same syntax as the C programming language. For instance, take a look at this ActionScript code:
if (mymenuaction[intloop] == MENU_MOVE_AWAY) {
if (obj._xscale > 100) {
obj._xscale -= 2;
obj._yscale -= 2;
} else {
mymenuaction[intloop] = MENU_NO_ACTION;
obj._xscale = 100;
obj._yscale = 100;
}
}
I'm glad that the ActionScript is C, because I already know C. Now, I don't have to learn a new programming language.
And yes, you can do a lot of things through the GUI, but I believe that you can have more controll if you do things programatically.
Here is one advantage that I just found when controlling things through ActionScript instead of from the GUI: I have 10 letters in my application. They each need to animate separately, but in the end they all need to get into a line. The customer asked for one part of the animation to change, and for all the letters to line up in a different position. Since I had done it all through code, all I had to make was one change, which was the variable that controlls where the letters line up. If I had done that through the GUI, then I would have had to go into each of the letters animations and edit the motion tweens to get them all to line up to the new desired location.