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Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

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Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#11

Post by mortenjorck » 

  Flash was the great motivator for browser vendors to improve [their] technology
Flash was the first technology to really compete with the open web. That competition (which went both ways, mind you; recall such late excesses as Flash's Text Layout Framework) ultimately made the web stronger and more versatile. It's hard to imagine what the world might look like today had that fire never been lit under the web standards movement.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#12

Post by StillBored »

The question is, do any of the existing web stacks come close to the beginner friendly aspects of the original flash?

I don't think so.. I can imagine any of my musician friends installing $FRAMEWORK and building a web site full of their own animations, menu's, and music playback..

Flash for all its "evilness" still IMHO hasn't been matched.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#13

Post by dyarosla »

I think what Flash (the program) really excelled at was giving creators the ability to draw, animate and program interactive objects, all wrapped in a single neat package. I would contest that no other software, even today, has come close to being able to do these three so seamlessly at once (Really, I encourage you to try to name one!)

Sure, when it came down to it you can say it had poor performance, security, filesize bloat (all things that were fixable or you could work around). But in reality, it allowed for developers to create amazing things in a fraction of the time it would take in any other environment.

As for myself, I've moved on to OpenFL and Haxe. It's fast, it's lean, it's cross-platform, it's open source... but it's still not the same.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#14

Post by virtualwhys »

lsmarigo wrote: post #6

Not just flash, I'm a die-hard fireworks user and was still using it up until a few years ago, much better than PS for quick web stuff (99% of what I was doing). Was a sad day for consumers when Adobe bough them out, before they had to compete with improvements and new features for market share. I still use Adobe Fireworks regularly over Photoshop.

I've got an ancient Windows 2003 server VM that I keep around just for Fireworks.

Not sure about PS, but even this circa 2001 version of Fireworks blows Gimp out of the water in terms of ease of use and basic image manipulations.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#18

Post by code_duck »

StillBored wrote: post #12

The question is, do any of the existing web stacks come close to the beginner friendly aspects of the original flash? I don't think so.. I can imagine any of my musician friends installing $FRAMEWORK and building a web site full of their own animations, menu's, and music playback.. Flash for all its "evilness" still IMHO hasn't been matched.

The authoring software was user friendly but sites made that way were atrocious in terms of usability in every way possible. Slow loading and also everything else about a browser didn't work as expected - bookmarking, back button, cut and paste, open in new window were all broken in flash sites. I don't think that it's laudable to create a tool that empowers beginners to create useless and difficult websites.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#19

Post by m-j-fox »

dyarosla wrote: post #13

I think what Flash (the program) really excelled at was giving creators the ability to draw, animate and program interactive objects, all wrapped in a single neat package . I would contest that no other software, even today, has come close to being able to do these three so seamlessly at once (Really, I encourage you to try to name one!) Sure, when it came down to it you can say it had poor performance, security, fil…

I think security was not fixable, at-least not to the user's and browsers liking. You had to disable flash for safety and stopping the most annoying ads.

The other issues could be left to consenting adults. But browsers and IT departments turned against plugins in general. Now even Java is almost gone (from browsers) for the same reason.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#20

Post by nneonneo »

jugg1es wrote: post #7

I feel as though the author missed talking about Flex, which really took flash to the next level. It was short-lived, as it came a few years before the end of Flash-as-we-know-it when Steve Jobs decided to block it - but it was a great way to build sophisticated SPA's before the javascript ecosystem was able to catch up. Thanks Flash!

I taught an introductory UI programming course using Adobe Flex - very easy for beginners to pick up and start building functional UIs with minimal code complexity.

Too bad it isn't used more in the real world - it really is a fantastic prototyping tool.

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