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Thoughts on Flash

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Re: Thoughts on Flash

#511

Post by Psyonic »

qeorge wrote: post #372
Psyonic wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retired? By Microsoft, perhaps, but not by a large chunk of users. Still large enough to matter, for most sites.

I agree with you, and that's why we usually decide to support IE6. But there's some things that just can't reasonably be done in IE6, and I think its OK to drop support in those cases instead of canning the feature entirely.

I'd also justify that by assuming that if they're still running IE6, they're probably not interested in your fancy app anyway. Obviously this isn't 100% true, but I'd bet its close.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#512

Post by ez77 »

jarek wrote: post #355
ptomato wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* "Objective+C++ is not open." Yeah? http://gcc.gnu.org/ * "Adobe only wants cross-platform apps, not good apps; generic subjective bullshit." Alright, so point to a single Adobe Air app, for example, that looks & behaves natively. * "Comparing video decompression versus hardware decompression battery gains and claiming that's an advantage over Flash: bullshit, since Flash uses video decompression in most cases." Did…

> Well, one mobile phone that has Flash support period? No? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N900

I'm just now reading the article, and as a N900 owner I second this point. Flash does really well on this smartphone.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#513

Post by Qz »

chc wrote: post #500
Qz wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No user benefit. But there's nothing stopping advertisers from making crappy HTML5 canvas ads, and those are guaranteed to burn even more of your CPU cycles. So I call shenanigans on that argument.

Apple controls the iPhone's HTML5 renderer and feels much more confident in its performance. "There's nothing stopping advertisers from making crappy canvas ads" is not the same thing as "canvas ads will suck at least as much power on average as Flash ads."

They were separate points. Canvas is inherently more computationally expensive than Flash at this stage of the technology. As canvas advances, so does flash -- unless Flash dies off completely, Canvas ads will always suck more CPU cycles than Flash ads.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#514

Post by mattmillr »

cabalamat wrote: post #270
Qz wrote: post #72

This is where he loses me: "Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open." Adobe can just as easily say: "Though Flash products are proprietary, we strongly believe that standards pertaining to what software is allowed to run on your computer should be open." It's doublespeak either way, and it's crazy to think th…

> [Jobs:] "we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open." Consider Python. Is it a standard? Yes, because there's an open source reference implementation. Does it pertain to the web? Yes it does, because http clients and servers can be, and often are, written in this language, and its standard library and 3rd-party open source libraries support http and other web protocols such as HTML.…

If Jobs had said "We strongly believe that you should be able to develop on the iPad and iPhone using all open standards pertaining to the web," you would have a point. Your logic is all twisty.

"We only want to support open standards" does not imply "we want to support all open standards."

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#515

Post by Sindisil »

megablast wrote: post #480
Sindisil wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you can. The compiler is free and open ( http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK ). That, an editor, and Bob's your uncle. On Windows, there's also a nice open source IDE ( http://flashdevelop.org ). The one thing that's not open source is the player, and that is free.

You realise that Adobe lets you make any components you want EXCEPT FOR THE PLAYER? Why, because they want to retain control of it. I mean, they publish the spec, people have made players before, and they have been told by Adobe to stop. Sounds familiar.

That is incorrect.

They used place that restriction on those accessing the .swf spec, but that restriction has been lifted. I'd have to check, but I think it's been several years now, but it's certainly been more than a year.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#516

Post by elblanco »

glhaynes wrote: post #509
elblanco wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And HTML5 canvas changes this how?

Because is used for just the "flashy" part of the site but everything else is still in traditional HTML with all of its advantages. Sure that can be done in Flash too, but, as we've seen, people often end up just doing the vast majority of the site in Flash. There's not the same temptation with .

Why not? If is being used as a drop-in replacement for Flash, why wouldn't it just be used in exactly the same ways? There's nothing special about canvas that would make it less prone to abuse.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#517

Post by jarek »

jarek wrote: post #466
rimantas wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not about keeping users stupid, it's about not making them worry about stuff they should not worry about. The user may be the world's best neurosurgeon, does that mean that they have to learn about filesystems? most computer software is generally poorly designed You are right about this one. But the thing is that Apple does exactly that: offering well designed software. It's not about buying fish, it's about h…

Turn the wheel and it goes where you want it to. But if you want to go to Google Voice, you'll have to take a long detour few people know of. You see, the road to Google Voice hasn't been optimized for your comfort. Or Apple's profit.

Downvotes noted. The truth, it burns.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#518

Post by ericd »

tomlin wrote: post #508
ericd wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no issue with him shutting out something that really sucks today at the cost of potentially missing out on something awesome to do with it tomorrow. The awesome scenario just doesn't seem likely to come to pass. If tomorrow there's a completely great thing on the web that can only be done with flash, then I think Jobs is pragmatic enough to reevaluate. But the fact that the main use for Flash on the web these…

> But the fact that the main use for Flash on the web these days, beside video and unusable websites, are animated flash ads that use up 40% of my much more powerful Macbook Pro's CPU time means I'm in no hurry to have flash on the phone In my opinion, this is moot point. Annoying ads aren't going to be limited to Flash. HTML5 ads aren't going to be more fun.

I was talking mostly about the CPU utilization, not just the annoyance factor. I would hope that the HTML5 equivalent would be less power-hungry.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#519

Post by ericd »

Qz wrote: post #513
chc wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple controls the iPhone's HTML5 renderer and feels much more confident in its performance. "There's nothing stopping advertisers from making crappy canvas ads" is not the same thing as "canvas ads will suck at least as much power on average as Flash ads."

They were separate points. Canvas is inherently more computationally expensive than Flash at this stage of the technology. As canvas advances, so does flash -- unless Flash dies off completely, Canvas ads will always suck more CPU cycles than Flash ads.

"unless Flash dies off completely, Canvas ads will always suck more CPU cycles than Flash ads."

Who says they'll progress at the same rate? That's ridiculous. Flash is at least 10 years old and has been in extremely heavy use, so it's likely plateaued in terms of performance on most platforms. Canvas (and the rendering engines for it) are very new by comparison.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#520

Post by glhaynes »

elblanco wrote: post #516
glhaynes wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because is used for just the "flashy" part of the site but everything else is still in traditional HTML with all of its advantages. Sure that can be done in Flash too, but, as we've seen, people often end up just doing the vast majority of the site in Flash. There's not the same temptation with .

Why not? If is being used as a drop-in replacement for Flash, why wouldn't it just be used in exactly the same ways? There's nothing special about canvas that would make it less prone to abuse.

Flash includes a ton of controls: buttons, scrollbars, text areas, etcetera. It has its own scripting language and memory environment that is separate from the HTML page and its DOM/JavaScript environment that contains it. There are ways to shuffle data and events between the two, but that means going out of your way to do so.

So if you're going to have a Flash-y data visualization component, say, it's easiest and most natural to have the controls for it (buttons adjusting parameters, display of those parameters, navigational controls) made in Flash too -- just expand the content rectangle of your Flash component out and drop in the controls.

In HTML5, the 'environment' of the object is that of the surrounding HTML page. Adding buttons and other controls around the edge of your visualizer is most straightforwardly done by using "native" HTML s and other such elements.

So it would be surprising to see -using pages end up being done in a way where the is essentially the whole page — it would require more programmer effort — whereas in Flash that's by far the easiest way to do it.

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