ActionScript vs. JavaScript vs. PostCSS vs. Refraction Comparison Chart

The ActionScript® scripting language lets you add complex interactivity, playback control, and data display to your application. You can add ActionScript in the authoring environment by using the Actions panel, Script window, or an external editor. ActionScript follows its own rules of syntax, and reserved keywords, and lets you use variables to store and retrieve information. ActionScript includes a large library of built‑in classes that let you create objects to perform many useful tasks. You do not have to understand every ActionScript element to begin scripting. If you have a clear goal, you can start building scripts with simple actions. ActionScript and JavaScript are both rooted in the ECMA-262 standard, the international standard for the ECMAScript scripting language. For this reason, developers who are familiar with JavaScript can find ActionScript immediately familiar. Animate includes more than one version of ActionScript to meet the needs of different kinds of developers.

PostCSS is a versatile tool that transforms CSS using JavaScript plugins, enabling a wide range of functionalities such as linting, supporting variables and mixins, transpiling future CSS syntax, and inlining images. It serves as a framework for developing CSS tools and can be utilized to create template languages similar to Sass and LESS. The core of PostCSS comprises a CSS parser that generates an abstract syntax tree, a set of classes that form the tree, a CSS generator that produces a CSS line for the object tree, and a code map generator for CSS changes. Plugins operate on the object tree, analyzing and modifying it before PostCSS generates a new CSS string reflecting these changes. Notable plugins include Autoprefixer, which adds vendor prefixes, and Stylelint, a modern CSS linter that enforces consistent conventions and avoids errors in stylesheets. PostCSS is employed by industry leaders such as Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains.