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Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

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Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#211

Post by est »

JohnBooty wrote: post #186

We're.... misattributing some things here, I think. Flash was a bundle of good things and bad things, as we all more or less agree. Good for creativity, bad for usability and accessibility and security, etc. You could, obviously, do so many things in Flash that were impossible with web standards. But, why was there such a gap between what you could do in Flash and what you could do with web standards? Why was Flash e…

> Microsoft used them to quash innovation on the web

Microsoft didn't "quash" any innovation, the ActiveX framework allows more innovation than any other browser on the market, Flash was invented as an ActiveX plugin, so does AJAX and it started the whole Web 2.0 era. IE had so much incredible feature that it makes modern looks like a dull corporate utility. We had VRML and vector graphics. We can playback videos with IMG tags. Heck we can even embed the mighty DirectX on Web. Chrome basically re-invented everything we already had with dHTML in the 90s.

Microsoft didn't took down ad blockers by crippling the API. In fact there's innovative abuse problem with IE, think all those toolbars!

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#212

Post by cma »

djsumdog wrote: post #33
pippy wrote: post #4

Removing Flash from the web was done with good intentions. It was a propitiatory system plagued with security holes. Instead of replacing it with similarly capable open standards, we've got a propitiatory Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), flaky HTML5 calls that differ between browsers, and webassembly. It's a shame that HTML5 never really reached the ability of flash. And it's also a shame that Adobe didn't simply re…

Flash died because of Apple, and before Adboe bought Macromedia, it was an incredibly small runtime; way better than Java at very specific forms of 3D rendering. Old Flash can be upscaled to 4k. A youtube video is pre-rendered and stuck at that resolution forever.

> A youtube video is pre-rendered and stuck at that resolution forever.

AI can do a decent job upscaling flash-style content from low res videos.

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#213

Post by est »

The_rationalist wrote: post #5
pippy wrote: post #4

Removing Flash from the web was done with good intentions. It was a propitiatory system plagued with security holes. Instead of replacing it with similarly capable open standards, we've got a propitiatory Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), flaky HTML5 calls that differ between browsers, and webassembly. It's a shame that HTML5 never really reached the ability of flash. And it's also a shame that Adobe didn't simply re…

What can flash do that modern browsers can't?

Make vector animations with simple clicks and works on every browser.

And make it streamable. No, your fancy JSON over Websocket is not exactly streamable.

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#214

Post by Animats »

l_t wrote: post #104
hunta2097 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm an old git. I think you have deftly described a bigger problem, as the whole industry gets more and more sophisticated and complex. The barrier for entry is so high now that I think it stifles young people's interest too quickly. The great thing about Flash was the developer tool. Part animation studio, part simple programming IDE. It was a great balance. Maybe there is a place in the market for frame…

I would love to see something with a Flash-like UI. I'm not sure if there is a place for it in the middle-school market anymore, though. I'll explain why: I think an interesting part of my experience was that it started with watching. I just loved the videos and thought they were hilarious. I admired the people who made those videos and I wanted to join that circle of creators. And Flash didn't prevent me from doing…

I would love to see something with a Flash-like UI.

The 2D GUIs of many 3D games were written in Flash. There are non-Adobe Flash players which can be embedded. The advantage was the authoring tools - the GUIs could be elaborate and graphical without much effort.

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#216

Post by samstave »

I loved flash games, the only thing I couldn’t stand was the lack of ability to scale the gaming window on most sites, so you’re playing through,what, 320x320, or something so small...

I also hated the anti-flash tech crowd in Silicon Valley. One person I knew ‘Jason’ would get violently angry about flash...

And he was so vehemently opposed to flash, that regardless of his arguments against, he just made himself look like an ass.

Think BOFH or typical NetworkNazi against flash... but he couldn’t succinctly state “why” other than “it’s a piece of shit”. - fuck that guy. (And the other guy who wanted to fight me when I said that apple was going to go to intel based procs...)

Flash was GREAT (from a creative) aside from “give me a bigger damn game screen!”

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#219

Post by untog »

cma wrote: post #212
djsumdog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash died because of Apple, and before Adboe bought Macromedia, it was an incredibly small runtime; way better than Java at very specific forms of 3D rendering. Old Flash can be upscaled to 4k. A youtube video is pre-rendered and stuck at that resolution forever.

> A youtube video is pre-rendered and stuck at that resolution forever. AI can do a decent job upscaling flash-style content from low res videos.

Sure, but that is in no way preferable to a format that scales natively.

Re: Flash Is Responsible for the Internet's Most Creative Era

#220

Post by big_chungus »

heavyset_go wrote: post #167
dTal wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just young people. As in other creative arts, if the tooling is over-complex or high-friction it can simply kill the creative flow. We should aim to make things pleasant to use for experts as well as beginners. There is a great deal of philosophical resistance to this idea hiding just under the surface, driven perhaps by a sense that difficult interfaces are a test of worthiness. Consider the barrier to entry to…

Of all of the areas where there is legitimate gatekeeping, like with the AMA and residency limits, software is one of the worst examples you could have picked. Software is one of those spaces where there is an incredible amount of capital invested in making things easy for the lowest common denominator. There are so many resources for people of any age and background to learn practical skills in this field. There are…

Not exactly. Such camps certainly exist, but they're not for everyone. I was tinkering with Linux at 7, but only because I had a technical parent who put it on the family computer. I'd say the important part here was that I wasn't given a coding bootcamp course to go through, I just got to play. Eventually, I figured out how to use single-user to re-set the root password and play as much supertux as I wanted. This probably shaped my passion for technology and "solving puzzles" of a technical nature more than anything else.

I'd say if you really want youth interested in technology, you basically need a "montessori model" for computers. I don't believe that's likely to happen in school; you need funding, which requires measurable results. There's also too much bad stuff on the internet for schools to run that risk at that scale.

There are two rough classes into which I would break "tech guys". The first is the sort who enjoys it for what it is. Shaves yaks configuring his system, tries out new languages for the heck of it, that sort. The second has a perfectly respectable career in software, and enjoys other things when he comes home at five p.m. I'm not saying one is better or worse, but at seven years of age, you'll only have the few of the first type _really_ interested. Type two will often switch to a different toy once frustrated (i.e. upon a serious bug). You can't expect everyone to derive the same level of marginal benefit from just playing with tech.

Type twos necessarily better or worse, but we don't put kids into "plumbing boot-camp" at seven expecting them to develop life-long passions. Maybe a few will, but not many. To put it another way, you'll get a lot more kids into architecture letting them play with legos free-form than handing them a kit and saying, "Build this model by following the instructions."

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