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The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

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Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#131

Post by ZenoArrow »

blueprint wrote: post #123
ZenoArrow wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of systems like Haxe is "write once, run anywhere". You don't need to mimic the standard OS interface style to do so, especially not with games (as it's more important that the style of the interface suits the game).

That's great as long as you don't care about reusing your code. It's not just biz logic, services, utils, etc either, I'm talking about the fact that people put UIViews over SpriteKit games all the time and you can't rightly say that doesn't exist just because you get to downvote me.

Firstly, I didn't downvote you. Secondly, I don't know what point you're trying to prove. The people that create frameworks for Haxe have their own priorities, if those priorities don't align with your own that doesn't mean they lack merit for those that use them. Haxe has been used to create a number of successful apps and games. Instead of just looking for weaknesses, try also looking for strengths, try understanding why developers are choosing to use it.

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#132

Post by manigandham »

qweqweqweqw wrote: post #130
manigandham wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better than that: http://webassembly.org/docs/faq/#will-webassembly-support-vi...

Yeah, but is that actually required? I don't know much about this, but I'd guess 90% of websites will strip this just like debug info in most proprietary software, 9% don't know about this or forget to remove it, if it's included by default and 1% consciously decides to ship it for transparency.

Then it's no different than minimized javascript...

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#133

Post by bogomipz »

irrational wrote: post #52
kpcyrd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minified javascript isn't really open source either.

No, but there are tons of prettifiers that can get minified/obfuscated JS back into a state that it can be read and reasoned about fairly easily. It's not like minifiying/obfuscating JS compiles it into byte code. It's still plain text.

Do you or anyone else have any recommendations for a good tool to recover minified java script?

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#134

Post by jstarfish »

protomyth wrote: post #26

I think the final legacy of Flash will be the knowledge that this was the first major piece of software locked out of a platform and we lost a lot of the history of the internet with its demise. As much as Flash was a pain, I'm not sure I like the idea that it is acceptable for Apple or anyone else to keep that software off their platform. I wonder if someone comes up with the next step after the web will it even be…

This has always been the fundamental problem with building anything on a closed platform. This outcome was predictable, with or without Apple's machinations.

But loss of internet history has happened again and again and will continue to do so for time immemorial. We lost Webshots. We lost Geocities. Timecube is gone. All of my old Yahoo accounts, groups, friends and associated content have either been lost to data breaches or outright reassigned. Photobucket is a shell of what it once was, what with their blocking hotlinks and purging old data. Anything you created in Second Life will only last as long as the parent company decides it's worth supporting their subpar VRML engine for the benefit of its dwindling community of sexual deviants. As the internet becomes more and more centralized on a handful of platforms that happily ingest our data but refuse to efficiently excrete it for archival, bringing it with them to the grave, and that will themselves one day be replaced with something more hip, all your precious memories, photos and top-tier memes will be lost to time like tears in rain.

It's nobody's fault. It's the natural order of things. Old technologies and platforms die, and new ones take their place. Some data loss happens in the transition. The internet circa 2000 might have sentimental value to you and I, but it's counterproductive to insist that all web browsers need to be able to support playback of Peanut Butter Jelly Time SWFs, RealPlayer-encoded Nine Inch Nails videos, Metallica's homepage from 1997, or binaries of P.F. Chang's menus in their original form in perpetuity. Sometimes it's best to let go of sentiment for the sake of progress.

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#135

Post by BatFastard »

dilap wrote: post #36
desireekdlo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I agree that Apple nixing flash support on iOS seemed manipulative, unnecessary, and disingenuous at the time. It's part of a pattern of behavior from Apple I greatly dislike (unnecessarily failing to support standards under claims that doing so is superior--I say this as someone who happily owns Apple devices, as well as other companies'). It seemed premature. On th…

Jobs' position was they couldn't make flash run acceptably on mobile devices, so they never allowed it. Looking at how Flash turned out on Android, I think history shows he was right. Rereading Jobs' letter from years ago, basically all of it stands solid. https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ Remember when basically everyone was using flash to play video? Would we really be in a better place if that had c…

>Jobs' position was they couldn't make flash run acceptably on mobile devices, so they never allowed it.

I have a bridge to sell you too!

He took that position so that everything would be forced to go thru the app store. Flash apps can run on iOS right now, but they have to go thru the app store.

People wrote a TON for flash games, most of it was shit, but some was amazing and creative. Much like what you see in the app store now.

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#136

Post by [deleted] »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #131
blueprint wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great as long as you don't care about reusing your code. It's not just biz logic, services, utils, etc either, I'm talking about the fact that people put UIViews over SpriteKit games all the time and you can't rightly say that doesn't exist just because you get to downvote me.

Firstly, I didn't downvote you. Secondly, I don't know what point you're trying to prove. The people that create frameworks for Haxe have their own priorities, if those priorities don't align with your own that doesn't mean they lack merit for those that use them. Haxe has been used to create a number of successful apps and games. Instead of just looking for weaknesses, try also looking for strengths, try understandi…

[deleted]

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#137

Post by austincheney »

tomovo wrote: post #41
austincheney wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but what it's really replacing is JavaScript That is a common misconception, but there no evidence of this. WASM replaces Flash and Flash never replaced JavaScript.

WASM replaces Javascript as the target of other language compilers. If you already use Javascript, WASM won't be much help. But WASM lets you compile C/C++ and with a bit more effort other languages into a bytecode instead of weird looking Javascript, or its more streamlined and still weird form, asm.js.

> WASM replaces Javascript as the target of other language compilers.

Ugggh, still no evidence. WASM is a compile target in a sandbox. It is the new Flash or Java applet. Everything else is a wish list from people incredibly insecure about touching JavaScript.

So far any advocation that WASM will magically replace JavaScript severely misunderstands both WASM and JavaScript. I will continue to await something more than mere fantasy.

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#138

Post by nasredin »

k__ wrote: post #126
camus2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember thinking, wait, Javascript will catch up eventually then why would anyone use flash? At the same time, we probably owe a lot to flash existing (especially WebRTC). Flash helped us get browsers to this point faster both through it's tech and increasing consumer awareness/demand for media. i don't think most people remember how bad Javascript was, how limited web API were, and how different browsers implem…

I had the impression that the Web got significantly better after it was released from the Flash lock-in.

So instead of click-to-play Flash, now you have unstoppable, auto playing audio and video ads that spy on you...?

Yes Flash with it's weekly or sometimes daily security vulnerabilities was bad, but HTML5 is not "better".

It is design by giant corporations (DRM inside your CPU, inside your browser, etc.) FOR other corporations. It is not designed for people, for freedom. It is regulatory capture by Silicon Valley "techbros" of... Internet's standardizing bodies instead of government regulating agencies.

Hence when I recently used the browser (designed by an advertising company BTW), websites just freely play annoying sounds.

This is not "better". It's worse IMHO, since at least with Flash you had click-to-play.

/Rant

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#139

Post by BatFastard »

voidr wrote: post #101

> Along with Javascript’s lack of strong-type safety They could have just used TypeScript or Flow. It doesn't sound like they did enough research on the HTML5 option if they haven't came across these.

I am looking at converting 40k lines of action script right now. TypeScript is my top choice, while I like HAXE, I dont feel that is has a large enough ecosystem. Also ActionScript to TypeScript is really easy.

Re: The Death of Flash and Rewriting 1.4M Lines of Code

#140

Post by steveklabnik »

jgalar wrote: post #95
steveklabnik wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is required for webassembly; it has to call into JS to access the DOM.

Are there good DOM "bindings" available for other languages compiled to wasm?

I'm not sure, but I'd imagine so.
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