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Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#151

Post by warrenm »

esparrohack wrote: post #130
warrenm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say "boring" is not - usually - "worse" Most of the time, it's far better: boring works. Boring pays the bills. Boring gets more people to use something. Boring is ubiquitous. Everything "new" eventually becomes "boring" - and that's good

Yeah, that’s a HN fortune cookie. You’re saying boring is popular which goes against the principles of aesthetics. People think pretty things are better quality. You do too. Boring gets forgotten and replaced. Boring is not ubiquitous. Notice how zed Shaw tried that quixotic ugly website trend. Supposedly that’s what the world wanted. The world ignored it. I know what you mean tho. Boring refers to old tech vs new hy…

>People think pretty things are better quality. You do too.

some people think pretty=better quality

I am not one of them - I think better quality=better quality

>Boring gets forgotten and replaced. Boring is not ubiquitous.

Boring is ubiquitous - Diesel engines are boring. Diesel engines are ubiquitous. Apache is boring. Apache is ubiquitous. Wordpress is boring. Wordpress is ubiquitous. Reinforced concrete is boring. Reinforced concrete is ubiquitous. iOS is boring. iOS is ubiquitous. 1/4-20 bolts are boring. 1/4-20 bolts are ubiquitous. SQL is boring. SQL is ubiquitous.

Boring doesn't get "forgotten and replaced" - it gets used by everyone everywhere ... the very definition of "ubiquitous" :)

Boring doesn't equal "ugly" - that you think it does seems to speak to your lack of understanding of the nature of engineering: engineers love "boring" because boring works. Boring is reliable. Boring lets you build bigger things because all those boring things Just Work™

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#152

Post by esparrohack »

warrenm wrote: post #151
esparrohack wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that’s a HN fortune cookie. You’re saying boring is popular which goes against the principles of aesthetics. People think pretty things are better quality. You do too. Boring gets forgotten and replaced. Boring is not ubiquitous. Notice how zed Shaw tried that quixotic ugly website trend. Supposedly that’s what the world wanted. The world ignored it. I know what you mean tho. Boring refers to old tech vs new hy…

>People think pretty things are better quality. You do too. some people think pretty=better quality I am not one of them - I think better quality=better quality >Boring gets forgotten and replaced. Boring is not ubiquitous. Boring is ubiquitous - Diesel engines are boring. Diesel engines are ubiquitous. Apache is boring. Apache is ubiquitous. Wordpress is boring. Wordpress is ubiquitous. Reinforced concrete is boring…

Yeah see. You need to read other stuff than engineering blogs.

I don’t care how you feel. Everyone likes prettier things. Where’s your proof that’s false?

You’re making up your own definition of boring. It’s just a bunch of talking points I’ve heard forever.

I’ve read the same stuff you did. But nobody outside of tech could call diesel “boring” tech

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#153

Post by rendall »

tsukikage wrote: post #40
rob74 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the "not nearly as easy" part as long as you are limited to the usual HTML/CSS/JS stack. I think WebAssembly has a lot of promise here, as you can theoretically do anything you want in any language of your choice and have it run in the browser. Of course, this is also a threat to the "open web" where you are free to use your browser's DevTools to dissect the internals of any site.

The tooling is the main issue here, and that's even worse for webassembly than the usual HTML/CSS/JS stack.

This is the thing. ActionScript had a phenomenal API for each media asset.

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#154

Post by noduerme »

warrenm wrote: post #149
noduerme wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it would be nice if Adobe hadn't unilaterally nuked the ability for anyone to even look at it and judge for themselves.

Adobe spent years telling people the end was coming - ending Android in 2011, deprecating in 2017, and only finally EoL'ing in 2020 If that wasn't enough time to move on, I don't know what to tell you :)

They put an undocumented kill switch in players and then disabled them remotely in the wild. Such that no bytecode can be run on any machine that took the last couple years updates. Then they sold the player rights to a company that ransoms them by offering to bundle a working player with individual critical binaries at unlisted prices.

Laughably, they claimed this was ethical to prevent users from accidentally running insecure versions after they stopped patching.

I can still install Basilisk and run HyperCard stacks I wrote 30 years ago, but I can't run the dozens of games I wrote in Flash. It destroyed a good chunk of my life's work.

So your comment is rude. It's fine to move on and work in other languages, as I have, but to not be able to even show 80% of your portfolio because it was intentionally crippled by the company you rented the software from that you used to make it, isn't something you can move on from. It's been disastrous.

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#155

Post by animitronix »

noduerme wrote: post #154
warrenm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe spent years telling people the end was coming - ending Android in 2011, deprecating in 2017, and only finally EoL'ing in 2020 If that wasn't enough time to move on, I don't know what to tell you :)

They put an undocumented kill switch in players and then disabled them remotely in the wild. Such that no bytecode can be run on any machine that took the last couple years updates. Then they sold the player rights to a company that ransoms them by offering to bundle a working player with individual critical binaries at unlisted prices. Laughably, they claimed this was ethical to prevent users from accidentally runni…

It was all Apple's fault, specifically Jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#156

Post by [deleted] »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #98
ChrisRR wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an embedded developer it always surprises me that simple programs are still barely any faster, take 100s of MB of RAM, require a decent CPU despite the fact we're all using supercomputers compared to the Windows 95 days. How is it that physicists and engineers are pushing the limits of physics to bring us ever faster processors and we still can't smoothly scroll a webpage, where as I can design an embedded product…

Simple answer: because the software industry is a goddamned joke. It's full of complexity-fetishists who are arrogant enough to try and call themselves engineers while producing objectively terrible products and patting themselves on the back for it. Remember a while back, when Casey Muratori told Microsoft their terminal emulator could be a lot faster if it used a glyph index, and professional Microsoft engineers to…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#157

Post by Treblemaker »

jen729w wrote: post #41
irrational wrote: post #25

Maybe there is a vector animation tool that is as easy to use as Flash was, but that fact that we rarely see vector animations like we did back in the day makes me think not. I used to work with a group that created training materials using Flash. We had a bunch of animators that knew nothing about coding, but they could produce all of these amazing animated videos using Flash. They could also produce interactive ani…

And my mate Tim, a designer not a coder, could bang up really neat stuff really easily. Now you need to be Bartosz Ciechanowski and only he is.

TIL of Bartosz Ciechanowski. What an incredibly gifted communicator. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#158

Post by warrenm »

noduerme wrote: post #154
warrenm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe spent years telling people the end was coming - ending Android in 2011, deprecating in 2017, and only finally EoL'ing in 2020 If that wasn't enough time to move on, I don't know what to tell you :)

They put an undocumented kill switch in players and then disabled them remotely in the wild. Such that no bytecode can be run on any machine that took the last couple years updates. Then they sold the player rights to a company that ransoms them by offering to bundle a working player with individual critical binaries at unlisted prices. Laughably, they claimed this was ethical to prevent users from accidentally runni…

>So your comment is rude. It's fine to move on and work in other languages, as I have, but to not be able to even show 80% of your portfolio because it was intentionally crippled by the company you rented the software from that you used to make it, isn't something you can move on from. It's been disastrous.

It's no different than what happened when the C64 when the way of the dodo

Or folks who built stuff for DOS, and never updated to Windows

Technology moves on

Languages and platforms get deprecated and/or die

And if "80% of your portfolio" is on a now-dead platform, I'd say it speaks more to you not wanting to do something new than that you happened to build a bunch of stuff on something now dead

I get that it sucks that stuff drops out of support/manufacture/etc

But it happens

You can be sour about it, or realize it's the nature of life, and move ahead :)

Re: Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?

#159

Post by warrenm »

esparrohack wrote: post #152
warrenm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People think pretty things are better quality. You do too. some people think pretty=better quality I am not one of them - I think better quality=better quality >Boring gets forgotten and replaced. Boring is not ubiquitous. Boring is ubiquitous - Diesel engines are boring. Diesel engines are ubiquitous. Apache is boring. Apache is ubiquitous. Wordpress is boring. Wordpress is ubiquitous. Reinforced concrete is boring…

Yeah see. You need to read other stuff than engineering blogs. I don’t care how you feel. Everyone likes prettier things. Where’s your proof that’s false? You’re making up your own definition of boring. It’s just a bunch of talking points I’ve heard forever. I’ve read the same stuff you did. But nobody outside of tech could call diesel “boring” tech

>You’re making up your own definition of boring. It’s just a bunch of talking points I’ve heard forever.

Thank you for agreeing that my definition of boring is commonplace

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