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Yeah. Say what you will about the the bad old times of Dreamweaver and Flash, but back then, visual artists could actually contribute to the Web without going t

Yeah. Say what you will about the the bad old times of Dreamweaver and Flash, but back then, visual artists could actually contribute to the Web without going through "web programmer" gatekeepers. Unfortunately programmers have recaptured the power since then, declared the old technologies broken in ways that only programmers can understand, and brought nothing in return. IMO that's not an accident. Many programmers would also love to kill off Excel, because it's messy and not a "proper database" or something. And if the rumors are true, HyperCard was killed because "you could do everything in Cocoa and ProjectBuilder instead". User-empowering tech always feels messy and unprincipled to programmers.

exodust 11y ago
Dreamweaver was a different kettle of fish.. not the same, it was worse because it messed with HTML code, injecting its own horrible mess of stuff including nasty javascript. Early Dreamweaver at least. Flash doesn't mess with HTML, it actually forms a fairly good connection with javascript on the page with pretty seamless data exchange between the page and the SWF, back and forth.
kitsunesoba 11y ago
I don't think developers have problems with user-enabling technologies (at least I don't). What we do have problems with, however, are technologies that suck away our battery life and CPU time with little or no return, all while bringing a steady stream of exploitable security holes. If Adobe had actually made a serious effort to make Flash a lean, secure machine it'd still be around. Instead, they decided to just keep tacking on new features rather than spending several releases doing heavy optimization and only reactively dealt with security, so here we are. The bottom line is that nobody but Adobe is to blame for the death of Flash.
- BatFastard 11y ago
  If you want to blame anyone for stealing your battery life, blame it on the programmers. They were the using who took and easy to use (therefore easy to abuse) tech and misused it. Does Flash have more security holes then other techs? Maybe, but I do know that since it has a billion users, it is a prime target for every hacker. However I will agree that Adobe has drank the cool aid when it comes to the broken model which is HTML5, CSS, and WebGL
mcphage 11y ago
This reminds me of a recent article on Offworld: http://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/a-game-making-app-for-everyone.html http://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/a-game-making-app-for-every... The author went through a list of simple game-making programs that she had written up a few years ago, and found that most of them had expanded towards creating more "professional" games, and so had lost the simplicity that made them good to recommend to people getting into game development.

exodust 11y ago

Dreamweaver was a different kettle of fish.. not the same, it was worse because it messed with HTML code, injecting its own horrible mess of stuff including nasty javascript. Early Dreamweaver at least. Flash doesn't mess with HTML, it actually forms a fairly good connection with javascript on the page with pretty seamless data exchange between the page and the SWF, back and forth.

kitsunesoba 11y ago

I don't think developers have problems with user-enabling technologies (at least I don't). What we do have problems with, however, are technologies that suck away our battery life and CPU time with little or no return, all while bringing a steady stream of exploitable security holes. If Adobe had actually made a serious effort to make Flash a lean, secure machine it'd still be around. Instead, they decided to just keep tacking on new features rather than spending several releases doing heavy optimization and only reactively dealt with security, so here we are. The bottom line is that nobody but Adobe is to blame for the death of Flash.

BatFastard 11y ago
If you want to blame anyone for stealing your battery life, blame it on the programmers. They were the using who took and easy to use (therefore easy to abuse) tech and misused it. Does Flash have more security holes then other techs? Maybe, but I do know that since it has a billion users, it is a prime target for every hacker. However I will agree that Adobe has drank the cool aid when it comes to the broken model which is HTML5, CSS, and WebGL

mcphage 11y ago

This reminds me of a recent article on Offworld: http://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/a-game-making-app-for-everyone.html http://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/a-game-making-app-for-every... The author went through a list of simple game-making programs that she had written up a few years ago, and found that most of them had expanded towards creating more "professional" games, and so had lost the simplicity that made them good to recommend to people getting into game development.