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What's new in Flash 11

adobe.com

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Re: What's new in Flash 11

#21

Post by ars »

noamsml wrote: post #4
davidu wrote: post #2

I guess crashing isn't a feature. I'm not trying to be a troll, but let's be honest -- There has never been a version of Flash that hasn't piece a complete piece of garbage when it comes to stability and performance. If Adobe "got it" this list of "What's new" would include words like "removed" and "deprecated" and "eliminated." Those words don't appear once. They've just thrown more stuff into the kitchen sink that…

If adobe "got it", Flash would compile into cross-platform HTML5 code. The world doesn't need another inner platform.

> Flash would compile into cross-platform HTML5 code

Why? If I wanted that I would write HTML5 in the first place. What benefit would flash give me?

Your definition of "got it" is for adobe to shut flash down.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#22

Post by Peaker »

ed wrote: post #19
whatever_dude wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree. I've come to realize that crashing is usually either the developer's fault (e.g. trying to do something that doesn't make sense) or the browser's (with Firefox I'd get crashes constantly, since their sandboxing actually breaks the plugin more often than it protects from it; with Chrome, using the same version of the plugin, I get none). Still, if you look at what they've done in the past couple of years…

Crashing in a managed environment like Flash is never the developer's fault. These issues are either introduced by the browser vendor or Adobe. It's worth noting that Adobe is very reluctant to deprecate API's. They've historically preferred (with AVM1/AVM2) bundling new VM's into the player over deprecating features. And any deprecation must be version-specific, and tends to be more for API consistency than anything…

Haskell doesn't really compile to C, unfortunately.

The (deprecated) via-c backend of GHC compiled to something that looked like C, but depended on a horrible Perl script to post-process the object output.

It does have an LLVM backend these days, though, maybe that can work?

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#23

Post by MetaMan »

ed wrote: post #19
whatever_dude wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree. I've come to realize that crashing is usually either the developer's fault (e.g. trying to do something that doesn't make sense) or the browser's (with Firefox I'd get crashes constantly, since their sandboxing actually breaks the plugin more often than it protects from it; with Chrome, using the same version of the plugin, I get none). Still, if you look at what they've done in the past couple of years…

Crashing in a managed environment like Flash is never the developer's fault. These issues are either introduced by the browser vendor or Adobe. It's worth noting that Adobe is very reluctant to deprecate API's. They've historically preferred (with AVM1/AVM2) bundling new VM's into the player over deprecating features. And any deprecation must be version-specific, and tends to be more for API consistency than anything…

"Crashing in a managed environment is never the developer's fault" !!!

WHAT? Are you serious? Please educate us as to how that is done.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#24

Post by ed »

MetaMan wrote: post #23
ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashing in a managed environment like Flash is never the developer's fault. These issues are either introduced by the browser vendor or Adobe. It's worth noting that Adobe is very reluctant to deprecate API's. They've historically preferred (with AVM1/AVM2) bundling new VM's into the player over deprecating features. And any deprecation must be version-specific, and tends to be more for API consistency than anything…

"Crashing in a managed environment is never the developer's fault" !!! WHAT? Are you serious? Please educate us as to how that is done.

How can you fault a managed system? Addresses are a few abstractions below the developer.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#25

Post by MetaMan »

ed wrote: post #24
MetaMan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Crashing in a managed environment is never the developer's fault" !!! WHAT? Are you serious? Please educate us as to how that is done.

How can you fault a managed system? Addresses are a few abstractions below the developer.

For me there are many real world cases which can't be handled without showing the user a fatal error.

E.g. - the developer asks for an runtime created asset that doesn't exist anymore or there's a condition under which a block of code runs forever (actually in this case the flash runtime stops after 15 seconds of activity and allows the user to kill it but it's still a "crash" insofar as the user is concerned.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#26

Post by georgemcbay »

MetaMan wrote: post #23
ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashing in a managed environment like Flash is never the developer's fault. These issues are either introduced by the browser vendor or Adobe. It's worth noting that Adobe is very reluctant to deprecate API's. They've historically preferred (with AVM1/AVM2) bundling new VM's into the player over deprecating features. And any deprecation must be version-specific, and tends to be more for API consistency than anything…

"Crashing in a managed environment is never the developer's fault" !!! WHAT? Are you serious? Please educate us as to how that is done.

He's right though it depends what you mean by a "crash".

An unhandled exception due to referencing a null object that caused the Flash app to crash? Developer's fault, not Adobe's.

A crash that brings down the entire Flash runtime (and possibly the browser hosting it)? Adobe(or the browser vendor)'s fault, not the developers.

Even if the developer does something horribly stupid in ActionScript, the runtime should never die due to developer error.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#27

Post by mikeleeorg »

melling wrote: post #15

Before everyone starts complaining about Flash, I challenge people to go 30 days without Flash. http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html http://www.cultofmac.com/67699/uninstall-flash-for-mac-os-x-...

I've been using Chrome's FlashBlock extension and loving it:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoiab...

For those who want to take melling up on this challenge (and I would encourage it because it's an eye-opening experience to see much your favorite websites depend on Flash, or not), this extension is a nice bridge.

Flash embeds aren't loaded automatically. Instead, a placeholder appears instead. Clicking on that placeholder loads the Flash file, so you can selectively choose which Flash embeds to see.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#28

Post by mrb »

melling wrote: post #15

Before everyone starts complaining about Flash, I challenge people to go 30 days without Flash. http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html http://www.cultofmac.com/67699/uninstall-flash-for-mac-os-x-...

Millions of people go without Flash every day.

On their iPads, smartphones, etc.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#29

Post by ary »

MetaMan wrote: post #23
ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashing in a managed environment like Flash is never the developer's fault. These issues are either introduced by the browser vendor or Adobe. It's worth noting that Adobe is very reluctant to deprecate API's. They've historically preferred (with AVM1/AVM2) bundling new VM's into the player over deprecating features. And any deprecation must be version-specific, and tends to be more for API consistency than anything…

"Crashing in a managed environment is never the developer's fault" !!! WHAT? Are you serious? Please educate us as to how that is done.

Because the whole point of it being managed is that you can't crash it, and if you can it's a bug.

Re: What's new in Flash 11

#30

Post by ender7 »

Some of these are really welcome changes for me (native JSON, bezier curves, TLS sockets, DisplayObjectContainer.removeChildren).

And yet...

And yet I'm still planning on switching my web app to HTML5.

This is coming from a guy who's sunk over two years of development into Flash. It's not because the runtime is buggy and/or crashy (it is, but it's not that bad). It's not because it's so much easier to develop in HTML5 (I will dearly miss AS3 and generating art assets in Flash). It's not because HTML5 has more useful features than Flash does (Flash has more, and they're implemented more reliably).

I'm doing it because Flash doesn't run on tablets [1]. And that's what my users want. I don't have the time to develop three native clients for iOS, Android, and Windows 8, so HTML5 it is.

I will miss Flash dearly. I'm praying that between some combination of backbone.js, easel.js, raphael.js, and inkscape, I'll be able to build something as expressive as my old system.

[1] Those new Android ones included. I've used those tablets that "support Flash". It's a nightmare.

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