As a complement to today’s focus on animation, the Tween class (and related classes) in AS3 can be used to quickly create animations by code.
Link to a tutorial on the Tween class:
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/flash/as3tweenclass/
Adobe AS3 reference:
http://www.adobe.com/livedocs/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html