Adobe Not Worried About the Future of Flash

An anonymous reader writes "Adobe company man John Dowdell isn't worried about the future of Flash. He writes in his company blog, 'There's really no "HTML vs Flash" war. There are sure people inciting to create such a war, and individual developers may have strong practical reasons to choose one technology over another, but at corporate levels that drive strategy, all delivery channels are important Adobe territory, whether SWF or HTML or video or documents or paper or ebook or e-mag or film or packaging or whatever. Adobe profits by making it easier for creatives to reach their audiences. We're on the verge of a disruptive change that, I think, will dwarf that of the World Wide Web fifteen years ago. It was great back then when any wealthy person with a workstation in a wired environment could easily reach any creative's webpage. With these cheaper devices we'll be reaching far more people, and with pocket devices we'll be reaching them throughout the day instead of just when "logged-on." The WWW was merely a pale precursor of the excitement we're going to see, I think.' It's interesting to note that he talks about the World Wide Web in the past tense. I find it instructive as to Adobe's perspective. Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one."

Comments

What about Flash games and other stuff?

[sopssa]

Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one.

Except that it's pain in the ass to create Flash-like games with HTML5. You have to use all kinds of hacks to accomplish that, while designers and Flash game creators are familiar and love Flash authoring tools.

Flash isn't just about video, even if it's the most talked part of it here on slashdot.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash isn't just about video, even if it's the most talked part of it here on slashdot.

Really, though, that is what Flash is about. If you were to go around and uninstall Flash Player from all the PCs in the world, almost all of the complaints would be "I can't watch YouTube, I can't watch Hulu, I can't watch CNN.com."

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Trepidity]

Flash got nearly 100% browser penetration long before YouTube existed, though, and the reasons for that are still some of the main reasons Flash is used. In addition to complaints about online video, lots of the complaints would include things like, "I can't play FarmVille or Bejeweled Blitz anymore".

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[nahdude812]

Definitely, there's a whole realm of rich applications for which HTML5 can only just barely begin to dream.

But beyond this, even in the arena of video (which as you point out, seems to be the only corner of the Flash world the doomsayers want to talk about), HTML5 lacks ubiquity and consistency. There isn't even one single codec which is supported by every browser that implements HTML5 (Mozilla won't support H.264 for patent reasons), and even if there were, it still lacks functions which have existed in Flash for what seems like eons, such as dynamic bitrates (connection quality goes down, the amount of data sent to you goes down to compensate), and real-time seeking (ever want to skip around in a long video before the whole thing has loaded?).

Plus it's still missing camera and microphone controls.

Let's not forget that ActionScript is a much stronger language than JavaScript, and that things you write in Flash work in all browsers on all OS's if they work on your desktop, while JavaScript and interacting with the browser's DOM to this day is widely different in each browser, and sometimes even different in the same browser on different OS's. So the testing surface area in Flash is n (where n is the complexity of the application), while it's n*bv*o for HTML5 (where bv is the set of browsers and browser versions you want to support, and o is the set of OS's you want to support).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. HTML5 is moving in the right direction. But it's a long, long distance from seriously competing with Flash except ideologically. It will be five years before it's a serious competitor, and only if the backers of HTML5 all start pulling in the same direction (today they're pulling in different directions on things as simple as what codec video should use).

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[LWATCDR]

I have no problem with Flash living on in games.
I can take or leave most "all" Flash games.
Flash games don't work will on mobile devices "if at all"
Once you drop Flash for video Flash becomes as necessary as say Java. Very nice to have but a lot of people will never miss it.

Flash will be pushed more and more to the margins if HTML 5 takes off. Frankly there are lot of benefits to dropping Flash once you don't need it for Video.
Security is probably the biggest. Getting rid of Flash drops an attack vector you must worry about and keep updated.

What Adobe is saying and I think is very telling.
We do not make money off of Flash. We make money from authoring tools. If Flash dies tomorrow we will just make great HTML 5 authoring tools instead.
Heck Adobe may make a tool that makes writing games in HTML 5 as easy as it is in Flash.

So IMHO Adobe is saying that "Flash could be dead but we will still make boatloads of money with our authoring tools."

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Bigjeff5]

Games and 'other stuff' are better off written in Open Source langauges using Open Source tools, to run on Open Source operating systems.

I've never found that to be true, just look at the state of OSS gaming today - it's shit.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Flash will be pushed more and more to the margins if HTML 5 takes off. Frankly there are lot of benefits to dropping Flash once you don't need it for Video.
Security is probably the biggest. Getting rid of Flash drops an attack vector you must worry about and keep updated.

How does dropping flash for HTML5 remove an attack vector? It just replace one attack vector with another.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[postbigbang]

Well, there you go again.

The market forces include Silverlight-ish stuff, Flash, open-source wannabees, Fraunhofer Institute codec creations, and there's actually a wealth of stuff.

Some of it, however, is indeed encumbered by licensing problems. It's a big deal: we don't like to pay codec royalties. We're not enamored with Microsoft's Silverlight constraints. We worry about what Oracle will do to the Java Continuum.

And so HTML 5 isn't going to be a train wreck, but there are many details to sort thru as you cite. And so it's no wonder why Adobe feels like it can slipstream just about any angle that the center of the market future turns to. Fat and happy; nothing to see here; move along.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really. I've played games written on open source platforms, and they almost always suck. Universally they're pretty much a clone of a real game, with some inane penguin reference or recycled Monty Python joke thrown in. Really, tell me when people start using open source to make professional quality games. And music... I've scoured the open source libraries looking for something half way decent. Seriously, I know the tools can do better, it's just that the authors are those kind of people who think "Animusic" is good stuff. Here's a hint: it's not. And your "music" isn't even that good. It has no emotional character whatsoever. And yes, scientifically minded people can learn to appreciate and even create good Art: Feynman, Jefferson, DaVinci, Franklin, Cox, etc for examples. Geeks don't want to put in the effort. And then geeks get exasperated when people don't fully understand computers, even though that person doesn't have tens of thousands of hours logged in fixing computer problems. Or they get spitting (literally) angry when someone thinks Ewoks are cute. But remember, not all technically inclined people are geeks. And most geeks aren't actually technically minded... they just haven't grown out of childish things yet (Star Wars, Lego, inability to talk to a girl, unhealthy eating habits, lack of hygiene, etc etc)

That being said, I do believe that open source tools are useful, and would love to see them expanded. For instance, the JACKS system has the potential to be the underpinning of a next gen DAW that revolutionizes the way an audio recording studio is set up, but some of the artificial limitations (only 32 bit sound) have to be removed, and a proper real time editor with a good clean interface needs to be implemented (Rosegarden is headed in the right direction, but it has a LONG way to go.) The GIMP? Sure, it does a passable job. But the insistence of the open source community on such a name really is hampering it's implementation. I can get people on to Firefox. Open Office works (as long as I don't call it Open Office dot Org... then people look at me like I'm an idiot. For good reason: that's a really horrible name for an office application. Sounds unprofessional and leads people to believe that it's just hacked together by some teenagers in their free time, when in reality it is the work of many paid professional developers that makes it functional.) Linux? Have distributions include support for fonts that aren't completely ugly and you may start getting somewhere. Seriously, it's painful to work with the included fonts... and don't say "Well, just install package XYZ" because I shouldn't have to do that just to browse the web or read a document without getting a headache.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No, ActionScript has a lot of high order OOP principles (interfaces, inheritance, classes, packages, abstract types, method and property visibility controls, language reflection, and so forth)

That has very little to do with OOP, save for reflection, which is a pretty natural requirement.

is a compiled language

These days, JavaScript is usually compiled to native code. And guess what: Adobe's AS engine and Mozilla's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine share the same JIT core.

and has the option to be strongly typed throughout

That's an interesting feature, but it's neither a bug nor an ultimate selling point.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[mrsurb]

It doesn't remove an attack vector. But it does replace an attack vector that is practically universal and can only be updated by one proprietary vendor (Adobe) with one that has a series of different implementations and (at least with open-source implementations) can be updated by anyone.

As genetic diversity increases a species' resistance to disease, digital diversity increases our resistance to malware.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and even if there were, it still lacks functions which have existed in Flash for what seems like eons, such as dynamic bitrates (connection quality goes down, the amount of data sent to you goes down to compensate), and real-time seeking (ever want to skip around in a long video before the whole thing has loaded?).

These 'features' as you call them, are not helping me at all. What help is a dynamic bitrate going to do when your connection is dropped? It used to be I could just start the stream and it would buffer the whole video in the background while I was viewing it, so if my connection was dropped, I already had the whole thing in buffer. Nowadays it seems only a a few seconds or minutes is buffered and the rest is only gotten when it is needed (despite the fact that I have a fast broadband connection and loads of memory that could be used to buffer the whole thing at once) which is inconvenient when your connection just had a hiccup. And there is no way to specify in the flash settings that I want to buffer the entire file as fast a possible. Realtime seeking would also be very easy if the whole file was buffered, so no need for funky streaming techniques.

They might do this for cost reasons or DRM. Whatever it is, it pisses me off! The whole streaming thing is annoying as it takes control away from you and you are forced to use a custom flash video player with a louse interface while accessing it via your preferred media player software would be so much better.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

``... and that things you write in Flash work in all browsers on all OS's if they work on your desktop''

Let me introduce you to this fine Flash Snow Leopard bug: http://www.opencoder.co.uk/2009/09/bug-in-flash-player-filereference-browse-affecting-macs/

Yeah. That's awesome. Very cross-platform. The best part is, it's only on 32-bit BROWSERS! On the other hand, DOM differences? jQuery. Prototype. Etc. Are there still some issues? Yes, there are, but roughly as many as with Flash. Your testing area is always large, because you're never sure. As with Java and Javascript, Flash is write once, debug everywhere.

Which isn't to say that HTML5 can yet supplant Flash completely. Just that Flash isn't the panacea as a platform that a lot of people seem to espouse it as. No, testing isn't that much easier. Yes, it is that much slower on any OS other than Windows. Yes, it (Flex, anyway) idles at anywhere between 5 and 20% CPU when it is doing nothing at all. It still has capabilities HTML5 doesn't, but those are slowly dwindling.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[nahdude812]

That has very little to do with OOP, save for reflection, which is a pretty natural requirement.

I'm not trying to be snide here, but perhaps you should read up on OOP core concepts and features which include classes, inheritence, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling. In fact, reflection is the only one of those which does not directly contribute to OOP design principles (exactly the opposite as you suggest).

These days, JavaScript is usually compiled to native code. And guess what: Adobe's AS engine and Mozilla's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine share the same JIT core.

Yes, but this compilation is JIT as you point out. JIT is not the same thing as a compiled language. Part of the point is that you can do this work once and save all your users the overhead of doing it. You can also send them bytecode instead of much more verbose source code (making less data to transfer). It also leaves less chance of difference between clients since the client is responsible for less of the work overall.

That's an interesting feature, but it's neither a bug nor an ultimate selling point.

Anyone who has worked in a particularly large codebase (1000+kloc) would not agree.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[psbrogna]

Things you write in Flash do not work on all browsers. They only work on browsers that have the Flash plug-in.

Let's not gloss over that: HTML5 may support a subset of Flash today, but it could eventually encompass all of it (or, gasp- exceed Flash functionality) and will do so in all HTML5 browsers without relying on a proprietary plug-in and closed eco-system of authoring tools. I think many people prefer this approach because Adobe is neglecting their platform and also because existing authoring tools from the vendor don't provide the functionality needed at the price desired.

I emphasize the above obvious point because your post seemed to gloss over the whole point of the HTML5 vs. Flash debate.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[beakerMeep]

But you would have that much more code to replicate the functionality, and while in the strictest sense, that may not be an 'attack vector' it's unlikely to be any safer as the video will still be interacting with the underlying OS. The thing that strikes me as strangest though is that those (not saying you) that rail against Flash's security don't ever seem to take aim at JavaScript. Surely JS has been the attack vector of choice for far longer, and far more often, than Flash.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[nahdude812]

So they work in 99% of browsers (source).

Not only is this no where near the penetration rates of HTML5, it's only true for those HTML4 features which exist in the venn intersection of all features between IE8 + IE7 + IE6 + Firefox + Chrome + Safari + Opera (source).

but it could eventually encompass all of it (or, gasp- exceed Flash functionality)

I welcome that day - please don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's too early to sound the death knell.

will do so in all HTML5 browsers

Do you really think that's true? How has that worked out for HTML4 so far? Major differences between browsers and browser versions. Some of these browsers in their most modern form still can't pass CSS ACID tests.

Flash offers ubiquity and consistency that has so far simply not existed in the HTML arena, and HTML5 has not offered any sort of standards verification. If HTML5 wants to do that, it should create a set of ACID tests for HTML5 features, and any browser which wishes to claim HTML5 compatibility needs to score 100% on them.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not trying to be snide here, but perhaps you should read up on OOP core concepts and features [wikipedia.org] which include classes, inheritence, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling. In fact, reflection is the only one of those which does not directly contribute to OOP design principles (exactly the opposite as you suggest).

Oh, really?

Q:What does "object-oriented [programming]" mean to you? (No tutorial-like introduction is needed, just a short explanation [like "programming with inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation"] in terms of other concepts for a reader familiar with them, if possible. Also, it is not necessary to explain "object", because I already have sources with your explanation of "object" from "Early History of Smalltalk".)

A:(I'm not against types, but I don't know of any type systems that aren't a complete pain, so I still like dynamic typing.)

OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of state-process, and extreme late-binding of all things. It can be done in Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is possible, but I'm not aware of them.

Cheers,

Alan

This guy *coined* the whole damned term, so perhaps he has some say to it - not to mention that he got the Turing Award for that!

Yes, but this compilation is JIT as you point out. JIT is not the same thing as a compiled language. Part of the point is that you can do this work once and save all your users the overhead of doing it. You can also send them bytecode instead of much more verbose source code (making less data to transfer). It also leaves less chance of difference between clients since the client is responsible for less of the work overall.

Uhm? Flash works in precisely the same way - it transfers platform-independent data to the client and then it generates platform-dependent native code at runtime. If JIT compilation is not an actual compilation process, then - by your very definition - AS isn't a compiled language. T

Anyone who has worked in a particularly large codebase (1000+kloc) would not agree.

YOU are writing applications in AS or JS running in people's browsers that have more than a 1000 kLOC? You are a SADIST! ;) (And no, not everyone would agree, since there are systems written in Smalltalk and Lisp that are perfectly fine without extensive compile-time static type checking.)

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[psbrogna]

Ubiquity seems like a good thing in many areas of IT and I concede that Flash is orders of magnitude closer today than HTML5. However, instead of introducing (or continuing to support/invest in) new layers and proprietary standards (further complicating the stack, costing resources and making it damn impossible to secure) to address shortcomings that exist, we'd all benefit from embracing new open standards that attempt to address the issue.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has worked in a particularly large codebase (1000+kloc) would not agree.

I'm pretty sure the guys at Ericsson would beg to differ.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Some of these browsers in their most modern form still can't pass CSS ACID tests.

Few of them, and few tests. It seems to be mostly IE that's the problem here.

Also, keep in mind that the ACID tests are deliberately designed to expose known bugs in browsers and embarrass those browser manufacturers into fixing them. As long as there's a new ACID test, there's going to be at least one browser that doesn't score 100% on it, and that's by design of the ACID tests. Yes, every browser should try to score 100%, but if a browser doesn't, that just means they have work to do, it doesn't mean the standard is suddenly broken.

After all, does Adobe Flash follow what their docs say 100% of the time? If so, that really would be extraordinary. That's one of the advantages of competing implementations -- you can show an example of something implementing the spec correctly to show that it can be done, and if the implementation is open source, parts of it may be absorbed into other implementations.

It is currently the case that you can build a web app which will run well on Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Camino, Chrome, iCab, basically everything except IE. If we could ditch IE and Flash, we'd pretty much have what we want from HTML right now.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[xero314]

I'm not trying to be snide here, but perhaps you should read up on OOP core concepts and features [wikipedia.org] which include classes, inheritence, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling.

I hope you are not trying to say that JavaScript does not include these concepts, except for classes which is in no way required for OOP. JavaScript is a pure OO language, though I'm not 100% sure that it always has been, but it certainly has been for a while. You might for well at studying at least the different forms of inheritance so that you know what prototypical inheritance vs classical is.

Yes, but this compilation is JIT as you point out. JIT is not the same thing as a compiled language. Part of the point is that you can do this work once and save all your users the overhead of doing it.You can also send them bytecode instead of much more verbose source code (making less data to transfer).

In exchange for the user having the overhead of running the flash runtime environment. This also does not alleviate interpretation or JIT compilation, since flash operates as a VM for ActionScript. And if you want to reduce the amount of data transfer then send a compressed JavaScript library.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[RocketRabbit]

When people claim that folks are leaving Photoshop for the GIMP, I just have to laugh.

I have seen 100 times as many people running pirated Photoshop than I have ever seen with the GIMP, in the wild.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[spud603]

what is really scaring the more ignorant members of the openness clan is that Flash is quickly moving to take over the mobile arena and will almost certainly become the de facto standand for animation on devices, as it has with the browser.

Not until it runs on the iphone it won't.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[nahdude812]

An existing open source implementation does not mean that the codec is free of patent issues. Indeed, the legality of open source implementations like ffmpeg's and VLC's are dubious at best - in fact it is believed that the open source license of these projects is incompatible with providing an h.264 implementation:

Conversely, shipping a product in the U.S. which includes (though not necessarily implements) a GPL H.264 decoder/encoder requires that the copyright terms of the GPL license be upheld, otherwise conveying the codec would be in violation of the software license of the implementation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264#Patents_and_GNU_Free_Software_licenses

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[shutdown -p now]

only on slashdot can you find the kind of phoney that lets us all know that classes, inheritance, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling aren't what oop is about.

Only on Slashdot can you find people who have, apparently, just learned Java (or C#), haven't ever heard of Self and prototype-based object-orientation in general, and think that they are experts, and are therefore qualified to judge other people on how much they know of the topic in question.

Re:What about Flash games and other stuff?

[shutdown -p now]

The thing that strikes me as strangest though is that those (not saying you) that rail against Flash's security don't ever seem to take aim at JavaScript. Surely JS has been the attack vector of choice for far longer, and far more often, than Flash.

Of course JS is an attack vector. Every feature in the browser is an attack vector.

Now, currently - and also with HTML5 - there is a single JS implementation in the browser. With Flash, you have another JS (AS, whatever...) implementation, which is yet another attack vector.

(For the same reason, various IE-tab-in-Firefox or Chrome-tab-in-IE extensions also significantly increase the attack surface.)

Re:Ultimately, users care about use and content

[tepples]

A lot of the Flash videos on Newgrounds aren't FLVs at all; they're vector animation over an audio soundtrack. Until someone comes up with an editor for HTML5 Canvas animations, Flash will still have its uses.

The fact that they're talking about it says a lot

[DavidinAla]

When you have to explain that you're not scared about a trend that could hurt your product, it means you ARE scared of the trend. :-)

Re:Adobe should be worried...

[nahdude812]

Apple should be worried. They've proven to me that they can't be trusted to wield as much market power as they've earned recently, because denying a third party technology is a decision which belongs to the owner of the device, not the maker of the device. In recent years, I'd become an Apple convert, and now I no longer consider anything bearing that logo when making purchasing decisions.

Hopefully there will be a FireFox plugin for html5

[pgmrdlm]

Like there is to block flash.

I do not want any video type stream to load when i am going to a web page until I have made the decision to watch it.

That is not an anti flash statement because I do make the choice to watch a lot of flash. But it is at my discretion and not the web page designers.

If it wasn't for flash block, I would spend all day waiting for news sites to load instead of actually reading the news. I hardly ever watch the flash on those types of sites, and they are probably the worse offenders of loading up the crap flash. Now other sites, which by the nature of the site presents its content via flash. yes, I do watch it. But, only after I have clicked the specific flash object I want.

Makes Sense, Actually

[KeithIrwin]

When you really look at it, there's no reason that Adobe shouldn't embrace HTML 5. Fundamentally, maintaining a cross-platform plug-in is not a profit center for them, it's a cost. They don't make money on the plug-ins, they make money on the Creative Suite product which allows designers to create animations, games, and the like easily. All this work of maintaining their own actionscript standards and standard library just serves to make their pay products more useful.

Imagine for a moment that at some time in the near future, Adobe has a new option on the menu "Export to HTML5". Would this make their product less useful? Of course not. Widespread adoption of HTML 5 means that their product can now be used to create content for even more devices, including several, like the iPhone, from which they have previously been locked out. And it wouldn't even be surprising if over time they transitioned entirely to HTML 5, giving up the work involved in maintaining Flash. They probably won't do this in the short run, but in the long run, it's entirely plausible.

I'm sure some people will point out that the move to HTML 5 opens them up to more competitors, and it does. But they've already got competitors even with the Flash ecosystem. There are a variety of ways to make swfs, including swftools, FlashDevelop, and the free Actionscript compiler which Adobe itself released as part of the Flex SDK. There are even a few other pay products out there. So, essentially, they already are in a market where there are a bunch of other tools which are cheaper but either can't produce complex content or require a bunch of coding to produce similar content. If they switch over to HTML5, they will likely be in the same boat, just in a bigger lake. Sure they'll be competing with DreamWeaver or whoever, but they'll have a clear and immediate advantage when it comes to "Flash-like" stuff such as animations and games.

So in summary, if they manage the transition properly, moving towards HTML5 means less costs and a bigger market. That sounds to me like a pretty clear win.

Re:Ultimately, users care about use and content

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Why an entire editor? I'm sure there are many fine editors around, you only need an export filter.

Of course they aren't worried.

[e2d2]

Here's how it will go down: "Flash CS4 - Now with HTML5!"

They will fall back on their design environment to create HTML 5 compliant applications and continue to sell to the more design-oriented customer. So of course they aren't worried. They'll just use HTML 5 output and sell to their already established base.

Oi, hippy, shut it.

[NoSleepDemon]

Whenever I'm handed mod-points, the FAQ is quick to point out that I should not mod posts based on my opinion, in fact, I should be as impartial as possible. Considering the submitter's opinion is blatant to see, I'll just go and brazenly smash my point of view into his open-source skull. His, and everyone else's who think that Flash has everything to do with you-tube, and nothing to do with artistic license:

The submitter is a cretin. An arrogant fool. He or she probably thinks that HTML5 is the be-all and end-all of browser programming, and has wet dreams about Javascript one day pulling off something more complicated than a fade in/fade out effect. Flash exists because there is a gap between making disgusting prefabbed square forms, and fluid, interesting and deeply creative content; Something that tells your customers and competitors "hey, we have style!". Yes, it is possible to commit atrocities with Flash, but don't blame Adobe for that, the next time you see someone using AS1/2, tell them to use Flex instead.

Flash makes the web interesting, it's what powers the little widgets you find on the sides of blogs, it's what makes the Most Interesting Man in the World interesting, it's what lets me tell the designers "yes! I can render our company's portfolio in 3D". It lets people do stupid little games and animations that make things interesting. So, until one of your open source tree humping hippy tossers makes something as extensible, easy to use and creativity empowering as Flash, well, I'm sorry but Flash is going to be here to stay. Because let's face it, not everyone browses the web through Steve Job's little slab of crap.

Re:Oi, hippy, shut it.

[Arkham]

Flash exists because there is a gap between making disgusting prefabbed square forms, and fluid, interesting and deeply creative content; Something that tells your customers and competitors "hey, we have style!"

The problem is, we don't care if you have "style" or not. When I go to your site, and I can't read the text because of all the pseudo-scroll widgets and fake tabs, you failed to reach your target audience. Style is simple elegance. The perfect web site doesn't need drop shadows and background music -- the content speaks for itself.

Flash makes the web interesting, it's what powers the little widgets you find on the sides of blogs, it's what makes the Most Interesting Man in the World interesting, it's what lets me tell the designers "yes! I can render our company's portfolio in 3D"

Oh my God! You're everything that's wrong with the internet! People HATE those stupid widgets on the sides of blogs -- in fact most of us use Flash blockers specifically for things like that. Anyone who's not a marketing weenie avoids that sort of thing as much as their technical prowess (or lack thereof) allows them to.

We don't care about stupid online beer commercials. We don't want to see your company's portfolio in 3D. I'm quite sure it's no more compelling that way -- only slower, uglier, and looks like crap on my mobile device, if it renders at all. Content is king, not the stupid fluff you're promoting. Flash is the realm of porn browsers and morons, and the content created using it clearly caters to this subsection of online society. I for one will be more than happy when it is banished to the realm of popularity where Java applets live these days.

Creatives?

[rochrist]

I'm fairly certain that refering to 'reaching creatives' qualifies you for immediate douchehood.

Re:SVG+video in IE 9 is the death blow

[Bigjeff5]

Flash dies once XP dies.

Flash dies once people stop producing websites that need Flash. It has absolutely nothing to do with XP, or IE9, or a new HTML standard. You will note that IE6 is still the most popular browser on the market - web technologies, as fast as they change, are subject to the whims of those who use them, and in this regard Flash is a giant that won't be taken down easily. Since HTML5 can't do nearly what Flash can do overall, and HTML5 video is not any better than HTML5 (Flash has had H264 video for about two years now, and that hasn't even been settled yet for HTML5), and as others have pointed out doesn't even offer as many features for video as Flash does, I think all this talk of the death of Flash is wishful thinking.

The release of HTML5 is, by itself, not a compelling reason for anybody to switch from Flash to HTML5. Tying in to the browser doesn't help much in the way of security concerns, because you have the same types of processes going on that are just as vulnerable to the errors that create exploits. In fact, for anybody who already uses Flash regularly, switching to HTML5 will cost a significant amount of time and money with little to no benefit over just staying with Flash. That's not a recipe for a mass exodus.

Adobe has also never been known to stand still in the market, they are one of those companies that continually drives to stay on top. There are dozens of examples, Flash is just one of many.

I predict that most HTML5 based video will be primarily produced by people who are new to video and have no prior Flash experience, There may be a small number of people who try to switch from Flash to HTML5 for video only, but I think a large portion of them will eventually switch back to what they know better - which is Flash. This is small potatoes compared to the number of Flash developers on the market, and Flash-based websites.

Re:Adobe should be worried...

[thestudio_bob]

At least Apple is using it's "Market Power" to convince the world to move on to an "open standard", instead of some proprietary format. The whole reason Flash has it's market share today is based on a simple fact that 10 years ago you couldn't rely on the same functionality across browsers and platforms. HTML5 is not a 100% fix to that problem, but it's a step in the right direction.

Re:The fact that they're talking about it says a l

[Bigjeff5]

I don't know, when all kinds of geeks are crying "Flash is dead", and an Adobe rep comes out and says "We've faced worse, we aren't worried" I don't think you can automatically assume they are worried.

Basically, it tells you nothing, because you can't just sit there and be silent - that will be more of a condemnation than anything. If you're scared shitless, you say "We aren't worried", and if you're not worried you also say "We aren't worried".

Basically you can't read much of anything into it, and I have to point out that Adobe is extremely good at making their products the de facto standard. Probably the biggest knock against HTML5 is it is not going to be nearly as consistent as Flash across browser versions, the next biggest would be the fact that Flash will always be in a better position to adjust to the market - H264 video is a perfect example, Flash has had it for two years now, IE has it for HTML5 but Firefox apparently won't have it for HTML5 (it's a licensing issue). So if you want to be sure everyone can see your H264 encoded video, you use Flash, not HTML5 at all.

Re:Adobe should be worried...

[nahdude812]

Don't be fooled, Apple is not doing this thing you suggest.

Apple is using that as an excuse to produce App Store lock-in. HTML5 is not a competitor to Flash yet. Give it 5 years and maybe. Apple is using the gap while HTML5 comes up to speed to keep people from being able to play games or run apps on their iPhone / iPad unless they paid Apple for the privilege of doing so first.

Should it call onmouseover or onclick?

[tepples]

Find out where the user's finger is on the touchscreen. Finger = Mouse.

Next problem: distinguishing a touch that means hover from a touch that means click, so that the browser knows whether to call the handler for onmouseover or onclick. Any ideas?

JS, OO, and typing

[weston]

classes, inheritence, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling.

It's possible the parent was (correctly) trying to say that a lot of the ActionScript features the GP mentioned actually weren't necessary to make JavaScript an OO language -- all of these things were (and are) quite possible in JS before ActionScript introduced various keyword-based mechanisms.

Yes, but this compilation is JIT as you point out. JIT is not the same thing as a compiled language.

While that's certainly a distinction, I don't think it takes much away from the larger point is that JavaScript as a language is pretty much running "fast enough" for most of the things Flash does, and in some cases competitively w/regards to speed.

Anyone who has worked in a particularly large codebase (1000+kloc) would not agree.

I am a counterexample. So is Steve Yegge, who seems about as familiar with large codebases and a certain popular statically typed language as anybody, and has made a great observation about how statically typed languages (particularly the common manifestly typed variety) might actually drive code size as much as help you work with it.