As anyone who has read Slashdot knows, mentioning Flash is a good way to get people angry. Among the ultra-devout tech crowd, Flash has one of the worst stigmas imaginable. When I read comments on Slashdot, and even on Digg, I want to scream at the closed-mindedness. These people slammed the doors shut years ago, and they would like Flash to die a horrible death and disappear.
It’s funny really. There’s nothing inherently bad about the Flash platform. It offers a pretty decent language (which is getting even better with AS3), scalable vector graphics, and it’s on almost every computer out there. Yet like Java, Flash gained a reputation early on, and it’s tough to make people take a fresh look at it. Early implementations of Java offered poor performance, but now, those issues have virtually disappeared. Even today, many still argue that Java is horribly slow when many studies have shown that it’s nearly comparable to native C code. Likewise, Flash gained a reputation for bringing us obnoxious advertisements that can ruin the web browsing experience. In the same vein as popup-blockers, tools exist to block Flash content.
However, Flash is branching out into many new realms that take it well beyond web advertisement. The upcoming Flex Builder 2 will be an amazing tool to build Rich Internet Applications. Some call it an AJAX killer, many admit that it’s a strong potential competitor, and yet I’m seeing many techies completely ignoring it because it’s based on Flash. Honestly, it’s frustrating. Flash, like any technology, can be used for good or bad. I’ll admit, I hate most Flash ads with a passion as much as the next guy, but as a developer, I’ve chosen to make Flash a part of my daily life.
Share your thoughts. What do you think would help the most to change a few minds among the tech crowd? I know there are many folks out there who will never look at Flash with respect, but I’d say there are just as many that only need a fresh look to see what Flash has to offer.
I’m trying to remember what did it for me & Java… I think it was talking to an experienced Java developer that I worked with, and seeing some Java actually work. That did it for me.
I guess that means those trolls will have to have the same experience; talk to someone who is knowledgeable, doesn’t get defensive during the conversation and can clearly articulate the features & benefits. If you do that in person, you don’t need to cite any successful “Flash App”. There will always be griefers, however, and those who like their language.
Do not, however, let Slashdot make you feel like it represents the wider tech community. Most are server geeks, who have a loathing for anything GUI/non-commandline anyway, and in my experience, the signal to noise ratio on large forums has been low, with copious amounts of negative people. I for example, have absolutely no care nor use for Ruby. Do I wish to peek at it? Sure, but I don’t do server-side, so you’ll have a tough time getting me to be positive about it… probably never since I do GUI and no back-end. Just because we are all geeks doesn’t mean we’re all into the same thing.
…I will admit though, the release of Flex 2 can go 3 ways that either makes or breaks this community, break being a slow death. Developers really do embrace it; this will unfortunately take some big name like Google, not Yahoo, to create a series of impactful uses of Flash, and not support like Six Apart has done with their blog traffic tracker; think of what Google Maps did to AJAX and you’ll see what we need.
It can grow more slowly as it gets side popularity mainly from just being a contender with the AJAX crowd.
Finally, it can not take off like we all hoped.
…frankly, I don’t really feel too bad about #3… that is, until I think of the alternatives. There are none. That being the case, I really wish #1 would happen, but I think #2 will happen to a lesser extend. At least we have a cooler mobile presence than AJAX does.
I believe it’s a personality difference for one; some developers I know prefer the simplicity of a static HTML page, and I think that’s due in part to the over-the-top visual effects that many Flash sites exhibit. I do think that making Flash search engine accessible would make a world of difference. I myself am hoping that Blaze REALLY supports CSS and XHTML in form fields.
I also think Flash is losing a battle in academia against Processing, which isn’t proprietary, is free, and is inherently faster.
I have seen the reluctance to use flash first hand, but what really needs to be done is change the minds of the people with the money. Most developers I know have a lanuage of choice and its very hard to show them otherwise. But if the people paying the bills can be shown the benefits, Flash might find itself in more and more products. How you do that Im not sure….For me showing someone a gui done in flash over a gui done in other lanuages pretty much sells it. Eye candy works for the people who are impartial to lanuage constraints. Failing that a bigger hammer also works :o)
To be fair Flash matured enough to be noticed by the development community wtih the AS 2.0 release. Even now it has enough technological issues to be denied by the purists. Try convinsing a c# or java developer that AS is worth looking at :). So we have to be patient to see if Adobe delivers to its promise with AS 3.0 and then we can turn back and say ” I told ya so” to the development community and start evangelizing the virtues of Flash as a programming platform.
I think Campbell is right that one can’t expect the developers to be responsible for the change or making a switch to utilizing what Flash can offer.
Of course they very often will influence the decisions of what technology to use but usually what the actual end result should be is not in their hands.
So what it takes is more great examples of how to use Flash which really makes obvious how it can be used to enhance user experiences.
Adobe could maybe put more effort into making more examples on the webpage and make sure they have a excellent collection of links of Flash applied in various ways.
I’m not saying that they are actually bad with that ATM, but I would think that even more effort into practially showing what can be done with Flash would be resources well spent.
More examples of how Flash can be applied in a useful manner will make the people who actually choose what the website should do, rather than how it should be done, demand functionality that will make Flash the obvious choice.
Developers that insists to keep working with technologies that it cumbersome or impossible to reach the goals of their employers will not have much room on he market.
Of course it would be helpful if developers attitude in general towards Flash would be more positive.
It does seem to change slowly and most of the aspects that is claimed to be negative is basically stemming from being uninformed about the possibilities.
Large filesizes, annoying ads and intros etc have obviously nothing to do with the platform itself.
That text cannot be resized and selected or broken back button functionality is issues that developers need to pay attention to and make sure to implement, but it can all be done with a bit of effort.
Also it would help if Adobe paid close attention to minor niggles like that and for example made text default to being selectable.
It’s very easy to check the box to ensure that it is, but for some reason many don’t and Flash get a bad rep because of it.
I saw that Flex Builder will have back button functionality implemented which is a very good move IMO.
After having some discussion with people of the /. mentality the only points where it’s simply not possible to reach the basic functionality of an HTML page is when it comes to browser integration.
If the user have increased the textsize in their browser it’s no way to sense that and ensure that my Flash uses those settings.
Browser extensions that enable you to right-click selected text to do a search or mouse gestures I guess will never be available in a Flash application.
It’s quite minor points in practice I think, but the anti-flash crew will claim that they are really vital and thats why Flash is the utlimate in user-unfriendliness.
Anyway….the attitudes seems like they are already changeing fast and I think the speed and power of Flex Builder 2 and FP 8.5 and the new licensing sceme will certainly make sure Flash/Flex will rapidly gain acceptance among developers.