Yes, there are free Flash IDEs (http://www.flashdevelop.org) and compilers (http://www.mtasc.org) available.
The Flex Builder SDK itself is also available for free from Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/flexdownloads/index.html).
And yes, there are also proprietary Flash IDEs and Authoring tools on the market: Adobe Flash (Pro) and Adobe Flex Builder. Flash Pro aims more at designers while Flex Builder is based upon the Eclipse IDE and targets coders. They're both great tools.
Download a Flash (Pro) and/or Flex Builder trial from Adobe and play with it and study some tutorials (just google for "good flash tutorials" and see if you find one that you like).
When you're serious about learning ActionScript, buy the books by Colin Moock (http://www.moock.org) - they're the best.
ActionScript is an interpreted language, with similar technology as Java or Python. It uses a single-process/single-threaded development model.
The development cycle is similar to writing BlitzMax code: You design, code and then 'publish' one or more Flash files (which is what you could call an executable that can be run by the Flash player).
Flash uses the ShockWave File format (.swf) for deployment. Flash files are either embedded in an HTML page through some special tags -or- they can now be deployed as desktop apps via Adobe AIR (formerly code-named 'Apollo').
The most important parts to understand in Flash are the timeline and movie clip concepts, what the library is all about and that an entire movie clip can be a 'symbol' on just one frame of your timeline (you know, a movie within a movie, or like 'picture in picture' as TVs can do it).
The Flex Builder SDK itself is also available for free from Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/flexdownloads/index.html).
And yes, there are also proprietary Flash IDEs and Authoring tools on the market: Adobe Flash (Pro) and Adobe Flex Builder. Flash Pro aims more at designers while Flex Builder is based upon the Eclipse IDE and targets coders. They're both great tools.
Download a Flash (Pro) and/or Flex Builder trial from Adobe and play with it and study some tutorials (just google for "good flash tutorials" and see if you find one that you like).
When you're serious about learning ActionScript, buy the books by Colin Moock (http://www.moock.org) - they're the best.
ActionScript is an interpreted language, with similar technology as Java or Python. It uses a single-process/single-threaded development model.
The development cycle is similar to writing BlitzMax code: You design, code and then 'publish' one or more Flash files (which is what you could call an executable that can be run by the Flash player).
Flash uses the ShockWave File format (.swf) for deployment. Flash files are either embedded in an HTML page through some special tags -or- they can now be deployed as desktop apps via Adobe AIR (formerly code-named 'Apollo').
The most important parts to understand in Flash are the timeline and movie clip concepts, what the library is all about and that an entire movie clip can be a 'symbol' on just one frame of your timeline (you know, a movie within a movie, or like 'picture in picture' as TVs can do it).