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Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

waxpraxis.org

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Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#21

Post by kaddar »

betageek wrote: post #15
kaddar wrote: post #5

I want flash to die; I just don't want closed platform policies to kill it.

This whole Flash murder/death/kill attitude is boring me to tears - I don't think any Flash developer would disagree that HTML 5 will (eventually) replace the more basic things that Flash does. Advanced multimedia will still use Flash. Ads will use whatever is most intrusive until the end of time so use whatever tools you have at your disposal to block them.

I think most people feel the same way, when people say they want flash to die I believe they are ok with playing webgames in flash. The most common frustration I have is browsing restaurant websites that use flash for their simple menus.

As a side note, I think there is also a subtle common UI pattern to abuse the hover feature on websites which is common in flash. It makes touch-based browsing more difficult and I wish web developers would avoid it. It isn't fair to blame flash for it though, javascript can do it too.

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#22

Post by there »

flash will eventually go the way of java applets. modern browsers will be able to do 99% of what you need to do and for that remaining 1%, you'll have this clunky web browser plugin that you probably have disabled by default for security reasons, that you'll decide not to turn on to view the particular website and just hit the back button or let the blue square icon sit there.

browsers can now natively play video, play audio, find your location, store offline data, and do direct socket operations. i can't imagine a webcam api being too far off, enabling a flash-free chatroulette (that's all we really care about anyway, amirite?)

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#23

Post by ableal »

jrockway wrote: post #19
ableal wrote: post #2

(reply in comments by the author:) Then don’t install flash! That is the degree of freedom that I appreciate. Not so much Flash that bank/shop/gov. sites expect anyone to have it. And not so little that all the, er, uninteresting-to-me stuff now in Flash is rendered in unavoidable HTML5 standards. (Note to self: save a copy of an ancient browser.)

Uh, or just program the modern browser to work the way you like. I don't whine about jpeg or gif or png ads, even though my browser supports them just fine. I simply have my browser not show them to me.

Thanks, I know how to do that too. Actually I do a lot of reading on a browser with javascript and images off (Konqueror has a convenient 'load images' button, but CSS still sneaks in an occasional annoyance).

Firefox without Flash does OK for me now, for the rest of the stuff that needs javascript and images. I doubt it will be possible to tune it properly (short of hosts file munging) if all Flash migrates to HTML5.

And of course it's a bit unwieldy to keep multiple browsers around - Konqueror 3.x also shows me a convenient 'open link in Firefox' option, but that's it. And I don't think this kind of fiddly options will be exactly first priority.

We'll see in a couple of years, I guess.

P.S.

The 'canvas' animation in the page linked here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1252899 pegs one core of my Linux machine with Firefox 3.5.

I just tested, and it does the same with image loading turned off. Must also turn off javascript to make it stop (duh, must be a js busy-wait doing it).

(I seem to recall a line about 'depending on the kindness of strangers', not really an enviable situation.)

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#24

Post by pixelbath »

zokier wrote: post #10
jessriedel wrote: post #7

What ever happened with that company with the proprietary video codecs that Google bought? There were rumors that Google was going to adapt it and release it as a better open standard than HTML5

Rumors are that Google is going to release VP8 as fully free codec to resolve -tag codec wars. It supposedly should be comparable to h264 in image quality. But Flash is much more than just video.

Just to note, this is an evolution of the same video codec (VP6) that Flash Player supported from version 8 onwards.

Also, Flash Player since version 9 has supported h.264, a codec that is supposed to be a condender for rendering Flash useless.

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#25

Post by emehrkay »

I've said it before; there needs to be an flash-like IDE for html canvas (and whatever Microsoft uses) that outputs html, css, and javascript (maybe its own library or it would use something like mootools or yui).

This IDE could start off as a clone of earlier flash versions where you just manipulate shapes over time(http://dev.w3.org/html5/canvas-api/canvas-2d-api.html#images) and of course you could do more useful stuff using common html elements and incorporating audio/video. Once more features are added to the html spec, the application's functionality could grow.

I thought about attempting to start this up as a web-based app, but I have to familiarize myself a bit more with canvas, canvas shapes, and animation.

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#28

Post by daleharvey »

waxpraxis wrote: post #20
daleharvey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes but "noone supports new web standards" is a self fulfilling prophecy, we all know users dont know or care about what is happening under the hood, they arent going to push for ie to support canvas. as web developers we need to be pushing canvas and font-face and webgl etc and stop running back to propietary plugins every time a font kinda looks not exactly the same on every other machine as mine. Its pretty unargu…

Sure - but it's a constantly running cycle, people seem to forget that. HTML 5 will get adopted given enough time - but by that point Flash will have moved on and will do more and do it better. Then HTML will catch up again... etc. You can push HTML 5 and canvas all you'd like - but from a pure business standpoint if I can reach 98% of my audience with Flash, but only 40% with HTML5/Canvas I'd be an idiot to not choo…

people also seem to forget that flash is only "better" for some small definitions of better, there is a reason people hate it and most of them arent political.

your "from a pure business standpoint" is exactly what I was referring to, people are far too quickly jumping to quick and ugly fixes like flash that do nothing to help fix the core problems of why web standards are limiting. It takes a lot of "idiots" to push canvas and friends into widespread adoption, I am glad to see people like github taking the initiative.

Re: Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either)

#30

Post by waxpraxis »

there wrote: post #22

flash will eventually go the way of java applets. modern browsers will be able to do 99% of what you need to do and for that remaining 1%, you'll have this clunky web browser plugin that you probably have disabled by default for security reasons, that you'll decide not to turn on to view the particular website and just hit the back button or let the blue square icon sit there. browsers can now natively play video, pl…

Some browsers can do all of those things - but you've still only scratched the surface of what Flash can do TODAY with 98% penetration. As for webcam support, some people feel that HTML 5 as a spec will be fully out there and usable by 2022. I wonder when enough browser makers will start on their PROPRIETARY webcam interfaces?

Do you think Flash will stand still in that time? Suddenly jump from 98% to 0%?

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