If ActionScript is based on ECMAScript, why does it have classes and looks almost the same as Java?

Question

In this article, it says that ActionScript 3.0 conforms to ECMA 4th edition. But instead of looking like JavaScript and having no class or extend, ActionScript 3.0 code looks like Java and have the class statement and even have extend?

Answer 1

Actionscript 3 was designed while the ECMA 4 spec was still under development. It's divergent; it conforms to ECMA 4 but goes beyond it.