class TestArray {
    private var foo:Array = new Array();
    public function TestArray() {
         this.foo.push("bar");
         trace("this.foo.length ––> " + this.foo.length);
     }
}

I know, I know. Bad form. ‘Tis true. The class property foo isn’t really a compile-time constant. But the compiler says nary a word in protest. No errors thrown. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothing. Which would be fine if the Flash IDE didn’t get all butterfingered on you.

But try creating a new instance of TestArray in your Flash movie and invoke “Test Movie” a few times without closing the window. The length of foo will just grow and grow and grow. It’s only cleaned up between tests if you close out the Test Movie window and start over again.

I could be wrong, but methinks I smell a compiler garbage collection issue (albeit one surrounding bad code). Shouldn’t the compiler be smart enough to let you know when you’ve done something that’s basically foolish?

This time the joy came in the form of a seemingly mundane preloader I threw together using the drawing API. No need for anything in the library, just a nice, svelte little progress bar drawn in at runtime. Nothing too exotic, right? Pop it into my Flash file and blam-o! The unmistakable sound of breaking glass. My movie is playing after the preloading is done, but my progress bar is still there, stuck at 100%. “What the–? Oh brother, here we go again…”

A little Googling turns up this gem. Turns out the V2 button component drags mx.managers.DepthManager along for the ride, which nabs the highest and lowest available depths from the Flash player and then proceeds to sit on them for future use. No big deal, but if you’re a good scout and use the MovieClip.getNextHighestDepth() method guess whaaaaaaat… your next highest depth (1,048,576 to be precise) will be beyond the reach of MovieClip.removeMovieClip(). Never mind all those other open slots. All together now… “D’OH!”

The solution? If you use getNextHighestDepth() and the V2 components together in the same movie be prepared to use swapDepths() to drag that clip back down to Earth where you can do something useful with it.

So now the real question is, think anybody’s done anything about this in Flash 8?