Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by lsmarigo » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:24 AM UTC

virtualwhys wrote: post #14

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.

haha that's awesome, there must be dozens of us! Totally agreed to this day nothing is better UI/efficiency. Photoshop has extra steps built in for some reason that slow you down.

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

#42

Post by orionblastar » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:25 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #30

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.

Similarly, Visual Basic. Has anything since allowed non-programmers to build a GUI as easily as that? Just drag and drop, then double click the button and follow the on-screen prompts to glue it all together. It gets a lot of shit from real developers, but what can match it?

I did Visual Basic and MS Access programming mostly in the late 1990s. Upscaling to SQL Server when the database grew too large etc.

IBM OS/2 had a Parts Workbench that was easier than Visual Basic and Borland had Delphi based on Object Pascal.

Ruby on Rails comes close and Python is the new Visual Basic for a new generation of programmers now.

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

#43

Post by dilap » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:26 AM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #23

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!

it came a few years before the end of Flash-as-we-know-it when Steve Jobs decided to block it I forgot about that. Does anyone have any info about this? I didn't pay much attention at the time, but in retrospect it seems like it was one of the main reasons everyone stopped using flash. Did Adobe try to get Steve to pay a licensing fee, or was he just inherently against implementing flash? The excuse Steve made at the…

I think the bad mobile perf argument was legit – android made a big deal of “hey, we’ll have flash, unlike iphone,” and then ended up dropping it too, when it performed badly and killed battery life.

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

#44

Post by TsomArp » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:26 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #30

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.

Similarly, Visual Basic. Has anything since allowed non-programmers to build a GUI as easily as that? Just drag and drop, then double click the button and follow the on-screen prompts to glue it all together. It gets a lot of shit from real developers, but what can match it?

Delphi.

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

#45

Post by chuckdries » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:27 AM UTC

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.

There's an app on mac called "hype" that does a decent job with layout, animation, and basic interactivity in HTML5, but I agree we need good WYSIWYG tools.

That being said, Flash definitely had a learning curve that wasn't entirely trivial. So much of the javascript community seems focused on using JS for the really big applications and large scale stuff these days, but I think it'd be nice if innovation were happening in accessibility and tooling for light programmers.

Light programmers is my idea of people who want to build basic functionality but not huge applications and may not be formally trained or have any experience programming, like how small and medium businesses used Flash for cheesy website animation back in the day.

There's a lot of overhead knowledge needed to create in HTML/CSS/JS, and a lot of the beginner tutorials feel like they assume you're intending to become a web dev.

There's more tooling and better libraries for JS today than ever before, but these things are hard for beginners. Stuff like webpack is great but it seems like the focus is in that space.

You could argue that the high complexity large application space is where the focus needs to be, and where js is at its weakest, but I can't help but feel like we could do better. The best thing (imo) for beginners using JS (who don't intend to continue learning to become a developer) is JQuery. Yeah people abuse it but it does simplify basic animation stuff for inexperienced developers.

End rant I guess?

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

#46

Post by hobs » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:27 AM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #24

code_duck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, lets condemn everyone who creates easy to use and powerful tools! I think everyone prefers pain in the ass tools and don't do much, this is the best way to protect the holy order of coders. Long live shitty tools!!!

Yeah, its great when no one can index the content, no one with disabilities can see the content, the UI follows no conventions, sounds blares at you for you to slap the monkey, and is a huge security hole!

I get where you are coming from, but being snide when supporting something that was misused so badly is a bit one sided.

Excel is great and has enabled millions of people to accomplish things that expensive coders were previously needed for (and that was a net good) but when misused these things can cause terrible problems[0].

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-18/faq-reinh...

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

#47

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:28 AM UTC

jugg1es wrote: post #28

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it came a few years before the end of Flash-as-we-know-it when Steve Jobs decided to block it I forgot about that. Does anyone have any info about this? I didn't pay much attention at the time, but in retrospect it seems like it was one of the main reasons everyone stopped using flash. Did Adobe try to get Steve to pay a licensing fee, or was he just inherently against implementing flash? The excuse Steve made at the…

Flash is a security nightmare. It's a 3rd party application that opens up the device up directly into the OS if compromised. Jobs blocked it because it would make iPhone vulnerable to attacks they couldn't control. I don't blame him for blocking it honestly, even though it meant we had totally change tech stacks.

Also, Jobs probably realized flash apps could circumvent his app store model.

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

#48

Post by dyarosla » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:28 AM UTC

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #31

dyarosla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Flash screwed up security because of the way users could control what Flash had access to (through a Security Sandbox Controller on the Macromedia/Adobe website) Imagine that instead Flash went the way of App Permissions: asking users for permission to access, read, and write different things to the browser. Could you imagine? Advertisers wouldn't be able to pull as many annoying/shady things, and security wo…

Wasn't the problem was zero day exploits in the flash player?

Absolutely. There were definitely multiple problems beyond the one I mentioned with security. But I would argue the one you mention is a problem with most complex software connected to the internet. I mean, they did what they could, they'd release patches. You could argue that it's similar to what proprietary browser vendors would have to do if they were exploited.

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

#49

Post by pcurve » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:28 AM UTC

dyarosla wrote: post #37

code_duck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a counterargument, look at the state of the web today without Flash. Many websites are still bloated, still slow to load, still hijack the back button, still mess with copy and paste, still force same-window-only opening. So was Flash really the issue?

I blame unnecessary frameworks and engineering exercises for the bloat. In no other country, is software IT so big. So much technology for technology sake.

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

#50

Post by theamk » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 1:29 AM UTC

dyarosla wrote: post #26

m-j-fox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Flash screwed up security because of the way users could control what Flash had access to (through a Security Sandbox Controller on the Macromedia/Adobe website) Imagine that instead Flash went the way of App Permissions: asking users for permission to access, read, and write different things to the browser. Could you imagine? Advertisers wouldn't be able to pull as many annoying/shady things, and security wo…

I don't remember the flash permissions model being problematic. I saw two main problems with flash:

- it was a lightweight and compatible way to insert animated ads. The animation consumed a lot of CPU. This is why most people blocked flash, and why most Apple refused to support it on ipads.

- it had horrible security record. For some reason, Adobe could not fix the bugs in the Flash plugin. This is why IT departments started to block it.

For more details, see this very interesing Steve Job's letter why Flash would never run on i-devices: https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ (note it does not even mention sandboxing model)