Open Laszlo ( http://www.openlaszlo.org/ ) a pre-cursor to Adobe's FLEX, can generate rich web UI front ends with or without Flash. Devs can use an IDE for it (I believe an Eclipse plugin). This open source project is getting more interesting now.
Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
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Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#12His strongest argument to keep Flash relevant is "the coming HTML video implementations cannot agree on a common format across browsers" . Boy, they are in worse shape than I first thought. They will open source the parts they own of this beast, the problem is it will be too late to make a difference. Sure, he brings up the fact that they can update the majority of Web clients in less than a year . But what was it th…
And it was probably a smart move on their part to avoid political issues. Apple will add Theora support if the demand increases. Mozilla will add H.264 support when the IP-issues are cleared.
Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#13Open Laszlo ( http://www.openlaszlo.org/ ) a pre-cursor to Adobe's FLEX, can generate rich web UI front ends with or without Flash. Devs can use an IDE for it (I believe an Eclipse plugin). This open source project is getting more interesting now.
Does Laszlo have a WYSIWYG editor? That's really the only component that's missing: the ability for any artist that just wants to draw a vector animation and hook up some simple events to make a game. If we can lower the barriers to entry on HTML5, it'll eclipse Flash in no time.
And as a dev, trust me, you don't need one for Laszlo.
Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#14FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! I say we arrange for wrestling matches between the executives of Apple and Adobe.
Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#15Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#16Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#17Not really. Most of that 75% is in h.264, a format supported natively by every browser/platform that doesn't support Flash (e.g. iPad) and some that do (e.g. Chrome). Even Microsoft, if and when they do implement , are likely to support it.
It may be messier than just assuming Flash is available (welcome to web "standards"!), but I would hardly call it "the dark ages".
Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#18Adobe was once a seriously great company (Jobs apparently talked wistfully about those days in his Q&A), which together with Apple pretty much created desktop publishing and everything that goes with it (like Photoshop, Illustrator, PostScript, PDF, PageMaker, InDesign). The world would be a much worse place without it.
It started going off the rails after founders Geschke and Warnock left but after the Macromedia deal went through in 2005 the lunacy just took off. The only bright spot since then has been Lightroom -- sorry Adobe Photoshop Lightroom -- and even that was a skunkworks project that they had effectively killed until Apple previewed Aperture. All the rest has been just hicky and nasty, and Flash has become endemic (Flash for Photoshop palettes? Really?)
It feels to me as though, rather than being acquired, Macromedia has actually overrun Adobe, to its serious detriment. There's lots of precedent for this in tech deals like this: there were big political struggles in Apple between the incoming NeXT people and the existing Apple people (those struggles emerged as Carbon vs Cocoa, and you can guess who won).
I don't have any insider information on this, but it's interesting to note that all this recent childish posturing and blow-harding about Flash has come from former Macromedia people (this link, the inane blue lego image, everything jdowdell writes). Meanwhile, old Adobe hands like John Nack have been pointing out that, actually, the company's future lies in making great communication tools, not in making sure Flash "wins" a pointless fight.
Re: Adobe CTO on the state of Flash
#19towards the later part of his text, he argues for an open access to all devices, yet his app is not open (to apple's accusation that flash crashes a lot and part of that is others can't fix the problems that flash causes their systems- flash being a closed system). Maybe one can illuminate