Ah ... so Apple plans to kill Flash with HTML5

[Bookumdano2]

Never heard of html5 untlil Jobs mentioned it last week while he was going off on Adobe and Flash big time.

 

Anybody know anybody who works with this yet?

[Lee Flier]

It's not even a completed specification yet, so, no. It's going to be a couple of years at least before all the major browsers adopt it.

 

I'm all for killing Flash, though, especially with something that is open source and doesn't require special plugins and crap like that. That's what HTML5 proposes to do, but as I say, it's nowhere near being ready for prime time yet. Maybe Apple intends to invest some bucks in speeding up its development, I don't know. :idn: I didn't see what Jobs said.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Flash has served its purpose well, but like Lee says, it would be nice having something that's become so pervasive (and therefore necessary) also not be a proprietary technology. Plus, truth be told, I've never warmed to Flash programming as well as I'd liked, and kind of welcome an alternative.

[spokenward]

Here's a link to a link-heavy overview of HTML5.

 

While the entire HTML 5 standard is years or more from adoption, there are many powerful features available in browsers today. In fact, five key next-generation features are already available in the latest (sometimes experimental) browser builds from Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome. (Microsoft has announced that it will support HTML 5, and as Vic noted, "We eagerly await evidence of that.") Here's Vic's HTML 5 scorecard:

 

 

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-bets-big-on-html-5.html

[Lee Flier]

Flash has served its purpose well, but like Lee says, it would be nice having something that's become so pervasive (and therefore necessary) also not be a proprietary technology. Plus, truth be told, I've never warmed to Flash programming as well as I'd liked, and kind of welcome an alternative.

 

I totally f#*%king hate Flash. There, I said it.

 

It takes too long to load. It sucks as a development platform when you're trying to program in an integrated environment. Text in flash based apps doesn't show up in search engines. Flash apps break pretty easily on the end user side.

 

Can I tell you how I really feel about Flash? Really, I can't wait for it to die.

[blue2blue]

It's not even a completed specification yet, so, no. It's going to be a couple of years at least before all the major browsers adopt it. I'm all for killing Flash, though, especially with something that is open source and doesn't require special plugins and crap like that. That's what HTML5 proposes to do, but as I say, it's nowhere near being ready for prime time yet. Maybe Apple intends to invest some bucks in speeding up its development, I don't know. :idn: I didn't see what Jobs said.

From Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5#Completion

Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, expects the specification to reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012, and W3C Recommendation in the year 2022 or later.[9] However, many parts of the specification are stable and may be implemented in products: Some sections are already relatively stable and there are implementations that are already quite close to completion, and those features can be used today (e.g. ).

[blue2blue]

I totally f#*%king hate Flash. There, I said it. It takes too long to load. It sucks as a development platform when you're trying to program in an integrated environment. Text in flash based apps doesn't show up in search engines. Flash apps break pretty easily on the end user side. Can I tell you how I really feel about Flash? Really, I can't wait for it to die.

Huh?

 

I'm no big fan of Flash -- ten years ago it was safe to say I hated it but there are so many good implementations like YouTube and the Hulu player that it's been winning me (in recent years) -- but what's this about taking time to load? Sure, if someone doesn't use streaming content properly, that can be the case. But who but lame web designers do that any more? I'll admit I'm on a decent (but not exceptional) cable hookup. And -- certainly -- a Flash movie on my machine loads in a snap, even a big one.

 

Also the claim it's unstable made elsewhere. Certainly it doesn't take time to load nor is it unstable in XP in my experience in recent years. I don't get some of this talk. Maybe it just doesn't work well in an OS X environment?

 

I notice, Lee, that you say Flash apps break easy on the client side. Could you give me an example of this or point me to a page that breaks Flash for your browser? (I'm thinking you're an OS X user but whatever you're using.) I mean, really, I can't remember the last time a Flash app or movie didn't work for me.

[Lee Flier]

I didn't say there are no good implementations - that's why Flash survives.

 

And no, I don't use OSX. I don't own any Apple products other than the iPhone. Most of the time I'm running Windows and/or Linux. And trust me, it isn't just me who has these experiences.

 

The main weaknesses that it has are poor response to network failure or other unexpected conditions, and poor error handling when it does fail. A relatively simple app like a video player isn't going to really crash and burn, but a lot of apps do.

[blue2blue]

I respect your knowledge and experience, Lee. Next time you think about it when a Flash app or movie breaks on you, could you send me a link? I don't do much Flash stuff but I do get asked to do some and the guys I do it for do not like it when things break.

 

FWIW, I never thought Flash was a good choice for site navigation interfaces and was never impressed by sites or web apps that wrapped Flash around the site's UI. And I was glad to see the retrenchment of Flash designers to roles that they can do well, like media players, adverts and such.

[eventArgs]

 

FWIW, I never thought Flash was a good choice for site navigation interfaces and was never impressed by sites or web apps that wrapped Flash around the site's UI. And I was glad to see the retrenchment of Flash designers to roles that they can do well, like media players, adverts and such.

 

Agree 100%. Seems many web designers use Flash as an crutch to avoid having to learn CSS and Javascript properly.

 

I, for one, would like to see Silverlight take hold. (I know, I know - proprietry plugins are evil etc...) As a developer I find it just great to work with.

 

As for the plugin vs HTML 5 thing. Adoption is the key issue and at this point I'd say most people out there are more likely to have up-to-date plugins than up-to-date browsers. Not much good producing HTML5 stuff when large chunks of your audience are still using IE6...

[Lee Flier]

Next time you think about it when a Flash app or movie breaks on you, could you send me a link? I don't do much Flash stuff but I do get asked to do some and the guys I do it for do not like it when things break.

 

Same here. And actually a lot of the Flash stuff I have to deal with is running on corporate intranets, so no I can't send you a link. But next time I run across a public site that has messed up flash, if I think about it I'll do that.

 

FWIW, I never thought Flash was a good choice for site navigation interfaces and was never impressed by sites or web apps that wrapped Flash around the site's UI. And I was glad to see the retrenchment of Flash designers to roles that they can do well, like media players, adverts and such.

 

Agreed. When near-100% Flash sites became all the rage for awhile, it really irritated the hell out of me, and I'm talking just as an end user, not a developer.

 

Glad that trend seems to be past, and as you say, people are just using Flash for the stuff Flash is (sort of ) good for.

[blue2blue]

Agreed. When near-100% Flash sites became all the rage for awhile, it really irritated the hell out of me, and I'm talking just as an end user, not a developer. Glad that trend seems to be past, and as you say, people are just using Flash for the stuff Flash is (sort of ) good for.

Yeah... it was the new hammer for a while -- unfortunately, a lot of the people who picked up that new hammer didn't know how to use saws, chisels, files, screwdrivers, drills...

 

I'll bet none of us are huge fans of ColdFusion, either.

[eventArgs]

I'll bet none of us are huge fans of ColdFusion, either.

...I have honestly never met (in person) somebody that uses ColdFusion.

[Cry Logic]

Both Vimeo and YouTube have "experimental" HTML5 video already working on

their sites and Jilion have a working demo of their HTML5 player,"Sublime Video"

up and running here.

Runs well in the latest version of Chrome.

 

In general I won't miss Flash much at all if it fades away.

99% of Flash movies on the web are either ads or porn, but there are

2 100% Flash pages I like a lot.

 

 

 

Pixlr is actually a very usable Photo Editor.

Audiotool is really only a demo but it does show what things could be like

in the not too distant future.

Maybe the future for Flash, on the web, is as an application "container"?

[Lee Flier]

I've already thrown my lot in with M$ for the foreseeable future so if Silverlight takes off then that'd suit me just fine.

 

Bleh. :poke:

 

I on the other hand am SO glad that these days I don't have to do any development with any Microsoft crap.

 

...I have honestly never met (in person) somebody that uses ColdFusion.

 

LOL... I actually developed one site with ColdFusion, some time ago. And yeah, it was pretty goofy. Wouldn't really want to do it again, but I tend to use whatever people want to pay me to use.

[girevik]

 

Agree 100%. Seems many web designers use Flash as an crutch to avoid having to learn CSS and Javascript properly.

 

 

I'm a developer, not a designer, but for our project, we switched from JSF to Flex (Flash development basically) because the client wanted to see more than 5000 rows of data populated in a table, and be able to scroll down them quickly - no waiting 30sec. for lazy loading or anything like that. Hey, customer is always right if they're paying your bills.

 

I'll learn whatever it takes to keep myself gainfully employed - Flex, Silverlight based stuff, whatever. We're still using Java for our back end.

[Beck]

I've always hated Flash form day one. I kept waiting for people to come to their senses and abort before it became so prevalent. As I got into Flash my initial reaction was, "WTF? And it's a laughing WTF? Not so much an angry WTF?? Sounds something like this...

 

Whaha ahaha what the? Whahaha heehe what? What the {censored}?

[blue2blue]

 

Thankfully I didn't board the .net train until v2 so managed to avoid a lot of headaches from what I hear. Silverlight development usually takes place in Visual Studio and code is in C# or VB, so it's all completely familiar to .net developers. Essentially it's stripped-down WPF optimized and compresssed to fit into a browser plugin. Several of my apps for Windows suddenly work out of a browser... I'm instantly a multi-platform developer - Woo! I've already thrown my lot in with M$ for the foreseeable future so if Silverlight takes off then that'd suit me just fine. ...I have honestly never met (in person) somebody that uses ColdFusion.

Oh I was kidding about ASP. I actually think it's pretty cool. I mean, ASP is not much different from PHP in a lot of ways. And I moved into DotNet to some extent, as well, it certainly can speed up development, as long as you can bend yourself into MS's design philosophies (which, in some ways are more focused and disciplined than the somewhat wild west PHP scene). But there were just so many goodies available in the open source oriented PHP world.

 

I don't mean to sound discouraging, but I can't really see much of any way Silver Light is going to amount to much in the big world. But on Windows/MS-oriented intranets, it might well have some legs and will certainly be a valuable asset for delivering typical ("Flash-type") content payloads and interactivity.

 

On the CF front, I've run into CF served sites, of course. But major sites using CF seems to be a waning trend. I'm no server performance maven, but it's been my understanding for some time that CF runs into problems with large, high traffic sites. Although, of course, it has certainly been used for them.

[girevik]

ColdFusion is probably the worst web development platform I've experienced. Hard to maintain, and poor separation between model, view, and controller.

[deanmass]

Seems to me that no one really likes flash, they just deal with it...Unless I am wrong, can't you just put a wrapper on flash and make it play nice under h264 for the time being?

[MikeRivers]

Bah! Another new standard. Another web browser update before I can see certain web sites.

 

Why can't they just give me all the information I want in plain text and be done with it? I could read that on a Teletype (and, yes, I have, too, just not for a very long time).

[blue2blue]

 

Bah! Another new standard. Another web browser update before I can see certain web sites. Why can't they just give me all the information I want in plain text and be done with it? I could read that on a Teletype (and, yes, I have, too, just not for a very long time).

Have I got a browser for you!

 

http://lynx.isc.org/

 

You will love the home page!

[girevik]

 

Seems to me that no one really likes flash, they just deal with it...Unless I am wrong, can't you just put a wrapper on flash and make it play nice under h264 for the time being?

 

 

It's better than JSF or RichFaces. Also better than Struts or Struts 2.

 

I don't get emotionally attached to any of this stuff though. Whatever gets the job done, and keeps me employed....

[eventArgs]

 

I'll learn whatever it takes to keep myself gainfully employed - Flex, Silverlight based stuff, whatever. We're still using Java for our back end.

 

We're all in the same boat. Most clients I work with don't know enough about the web to care about what is used though... so it's a while since I've had to learn something new just because a client wants me to use a specific platform.

[blue2blue]

We're all in the same boat. Most clients I work with don't know enough about the web to care about what is used though... so it's a while since I've had to learn something new just because a client wants me to use a specific platform.

I have one elderly visual artist client who, while he does have a computer, is so unfamiliar with how the web works that he asked me to change some text I didn't recognize. I asked him what page it was on (but I already knew it wasn't in the site) and he said, Well, it's that page that comes up when you type in my name. After some back and forth, I realized he meant Google's search results. And the text was from some gallery or magazine that had written about him...

 

He's a fine artist, though. No puns intended.