Okay, as someone who hasn't written code since he was doing it on a PCjr, can anyone point me to a good self-help starter for learning how to code nowadays?
As I'm getting a playbook and will use it a lot with my business, I'd like the ability to write some apps specific for myself, and maybe helpful to others too.
Note that there's absolutely no reason you have to use the MXML ugliness to do Flash development. It's quite feasible to use "pure" ActionScript3, in which case your code has a distinctively Java-like feel to it (if you like that kind of thing...). In contrast to earlier versions of ActionScript, which were on par (if that) with JavaScript, AS3 is a real language, with static typing (again, if you like that kind of thing) and other features that make it reasonably suitable for serious development.
The benefit of using Flash is that it's got a nice set of tools for doing pretty decent UI development, in contrast to many other libraries.
They've also said that "hybrid" apps will be feasible, allowing you to write extensions in the native SDK once that's available, while keeping your UI in Flash.
