HYPE is a “visual” framework conceived by Branden Hall & Joshua Davis with the rather lovely goal of making AS3 more accessible to designers.

Flash has matured incredibly in the past decade, but it has done so in a way that has blocked non-developers from even getting started. The simple fact of the matter is that with older versions of Flash you could learn the tool and how to program ActionScript almost entirely through creative play. With the latest iterations, unless you have a background in object-oriented programming, that method of learning by doing is simply not an option. This is where HYPE comes in.

This rings true with me as I know many former designer/coders who have simply given up with AS3. HYPE really does makes complex animations\interactions much easier to build. The only downside is you do have to invest a little time learning the language of the framework itself, but really this is very small price to pay.