AS 2.0 Class runtime loading problem

Question

Hi all
i work in a company who is developing an impressive sized
flash web application.
flash application development, involving many swf files that
share the same classes,
creates a potential problem which is very difficult for us to
avoid:
say you compile a 'thumb_Navigation_bar.swf' which uses the
'PhotoManager' class
that is imported and compiled with the swf file,
then you make some changes to the 'PhotoManager' class,
after that, you created 'another_gallery_component.swf' who
uses the same PhotoManager for some other uses
you actually have two swf files, importing and using the same
class with different versions
the problem occurs when the 'thumb_Navigation_bar.swf'
comiled with the old version is loaded into memory
then the 'another_gallery_component.swf' , though compiled
with a newer version of the 'PhotoManager' class
since it had already loaded into memory, the
'another_gallery_component.swf' file can't use the new
functionality of the latest version of the class.
the only solution to this behavior we have right now is
running a complete build process which compiles all the whole
application with all of its swf files.
though not a big issue when building a relative small scale
project,
when the application gets bigger and complex, it creates a
major problem, making the development process extremely tedious.
does anyone have encountered a similar problem ?
anyone have an idea as to how to go about solving it ?
cheers
Yariv

Answer 1

you need to reconsider your design process. if you had
thought ahead, you would have created a base PhotoManager class
that would not need to be changed for different applications.
at its most basic, PhotoManager would be an interface whose
methods and properties are implemented in another class that's
specifically designed to work with thumb_Navigation_bar. and you
would use another implementation for
another_gallery_component.