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I still use Flash

foon.uk

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Re: I still use Flash

#151

Post by thedragonline »

dandigangi wrote: post #114
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #96

I remember creating a simple "catch the falling X" game in Flash 20 years ago. It was basic, but had everything you'd expect in a beginner project: points, multiple game states/screens, a victory condition, basic story (which was just a screen at the beginning, like NES). The thing is, I was a literal child and I also had no clue how to code -- I did everything by following tutorials and gluing together code I copy&p…

Had an awesome experience learning programming on AS also! Simple projects/games but great language to learn. Can involve so many key concepts.

I miss AS. I used it to build a gis engine that packed 5D into what superficially looked like 2D - item renderers helped make that happen. It is aggravating to no end to watch people pile on Flash for its faults - they either don't understand what was lost or just don't want to understand the loss. Steve Jobs is in this group.

Re: I still use Flash

#152

Post by chubot »

makach wrote: post #23

Wow! Talk about a love letter at the end of 2022! The dev has identified a gap and applies time and effort to solve it through building it. Halfway, the dev complains about the orignal devs using XML, because it is not efficient "Hey, I'm not complaining, it makes my job easier." Well sounds like the original developers of Flash made a good decision. If it makes it easier to parse the content at a later stage, I'm wi…

Yup, this is classic Unix style! Having data-centric interoperability among tools also helps you port to new platforms more smoothly, as opposed to throwing away your code or rewriting from scratch.

Examples:

1. Using text formats embedded in XML -- he took advantage of this when reverse engineering

2. Generating text ASM -- he said this aids debuggability, and allows using existing ASM tools that he didn't have to write

3. Generating C++ -- taking advantage of the type system, as mentioned, and a huge array of other tools (profilers and debuggers)

It's data-centric rather than code-centric. It's a interoperable and transparent architecture, not a monolithic one. (Which is not surprising because Flash itself was made for the web.)

Related: The Internet Was Designed with a Narrow Waist https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2022/02/diagrams.html

A Sketch of the Biggest Idea in Software Architecture https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2022/03/backlog-arch.html

Re: I still use Flash

#153

Post by the-alchemist »

The frustrating thing for me personally is that we--as an industry--just keep rewriting/porting the same pieces of software from one API to another.

Here is was Flash -> Steam SDK. In another HN article, it was PlantUML (Java) to D3 (Javascript).

Didn't they re-write Minecraft to something else (Bedrock Edition)?

Re: I still use Flash

#154

Post by EamonnMR »

gibspaulding wrote: post #25

I was expecting "Attempt 3" to involve Bluemaxima's Flashpoint, and was surprised not to see it mentioned. Does anyone know why that wouldn't have been an option, or is this essentially what Attempt 1 would have involved? For anyone not familiar with Flashpoint, it's a project to preserve old flash games and animations and keep them playable on modern platforms. It's open source and includes a huge library (including…

It's like Steam for Flash, Shockwave, and Java Applet games. I highly recommend it. Though I do wonder if it's going to survive the transition away from x86...

Re: I still use Flash

#155

Post by RandomWorker »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #96

I remember creating a simple "catch the falling X" game in Flash 20 years ago. It was basic, but had everything you'd expect in a beginner project: points, multiple game states/screens, a victory condition, basic story (which was just a screen at the beginning, like NES). The thing is, I was a literal child and I also had no clue how to code -- I did everything by following tutorials and gluing together code I copy&p…

Have you tried processing it gets close to action script and canvas. We just need to put processing on a time framed canvas. With a Figma like editing experience.

https://processing.org/tutorials/gettingstarted

Re: I still use Flash

#156

Post by rogual »

bambax wrote: post #59
civilized wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone here is going to complain about a post where you make a game work by reverse engineering Bezier splines encoded in XML by Adobe Flash. If that's not "Hacker" News, what is?

Indeed! ;-) However I wonder why the OP didn't try to keep vector graphics and use to SVG for instance? That would allow for infinite scalability. It is mentioned that "GPUs don't like vectors" but if the game doesn't change too often it should not make a lot of difference?

I did consider it. Infinite scalability isn't required during runtime; the scene doesn't ever zoom or scale in the games, because that was always so slow in Flash, so the only real benefits would be 1) supporting higher resolutions and 2) reducing file size.

For 1) I decided I'd rather just release an update with larger textures if these ones ever start to look dated. That way I get to keep the runtime code simple. Less code means fewer bugs. I don't want to spend a lot of time fielding support requests from users who hit edge cases in the rasterizer. As for not changing too often, that's true, but taking advantage of that means doing change tracking with dirty-rectangles or similar, which not only adds complexity but also feels like it would make performance less predictable.

And for 2) the game as it stands now is under 50MB so I didn't feel a pressing need to make it smaller, although a tiny executable would be cool in a satisfying, demoscene kind of way.

Re: I still use Flash

#158

Post by Alifatisk »

the-alchemist wrote: post #153

The frustrating thing for me personally is that we--as an industry--just keep rewriting/porting the same pieces of software from one API to another. Here is was Flash -> Steam SDK. In another HN article, it was PlantUML (Java) to D3 (Javascript). Didn't they re-write Minecraft to something else (Bedrock Edition)?

Yes, they did re-write to Minecraft Bedrock Edition but did not deprecate java edition, it's still alive an thriving.

Re: I still use Flash

#159

Post by steeleduncan »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #81
pmarreck wrote: post #39

> Although I developed the game mostly on my Mac, during development Apple invented this thing called “Notarization” where if you run any app on a new version of MacOS, it'll make a network request to Apple to ask if the app's developer pays Apple a yearly fee. If the developer does not pay Apple a yearly fee, MacOS will pop up a dialog strongly implying the app is a virus and refuse to start it. > For this reason, W…

If Proton is accepted as the solution to Linux gaming what is the reason for a developer to build for Linux over Windows? Funnily enough there are parallels with that to why Apple didn’t want Flash on iOS. If you could make it in Flash and ship to both why code an iOS app. Same thing, zero reason to make a native Linux build while that works fine.

A native Linux build is still better performance than Proton, so with the popularity of Steam Deck it is worth the effort recompiling for Linux for higher performance games.

Re: I still use Flash

#160

Post by thrdbndndn »

alxlaz wrote: post #63

> The vintage Flash UI is great. Buttons have edges. Icons look like things. Space is well-used. It's amazing! Using old UIs makes me feel like an archaeologist discovering some sort of forgotten Roman technology. The lost art of UI design. It's neat. This was one my favourites parts in the article. An the real piece of the pie comes right after it: there's a screenshot with like thirty icons and they're different en…

I get (and agree with) this idea in general, but these buttons are still present in any Adobe apps (esp. Photoshop) and they're not going anywhere.

Hell, I don't think they're original to Flash to begin with, more like borrowed from Photoshop when Adobe bought Macromedia (this is purely my speculation; but Photoshop is much older).

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