Re:Flashy GUIs (Score 1)

I got into programming through (then Macromedia) Flash. The nice thing about Flash is that you can get immediate, visible results with very little programming; there are various ways to perform many common activities, with varying degrees of programming knowledge required.

For example, you can 'tween' motion by setting keyframes and controlling the easing in the IDE, or you can script the motion using event callbacks and 2D transformations. Once you become comfortable with the IDE approach, you begin to find its limitations, and to understand the utility of a programmatic approach.

ActionScript also has the advantage of having a lot in common with JavaScript, which offers easy entry into another domain where you can achieve a the satisfaction of getting visible, substantial results with just a little effort.

My ActionScript started out crude but grew increasingly ambitious, until I left it in search of greener pastures - and found a range of more powerful languages. These days most of my code is server-side, and a substantial amount of it runs without any visible result (or user interaction) at all - but it was valuable (and encouraging) to me at that early stage to encounter such an expressive, sensory environment to learn in.