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This has been done before, and it's time for it to happen again. Hailing from 1995, Flash (nee Future Splash) was a dev tool for designers. Design, animate, o

This has been done before, and it's time for it to happen again. Hailing from 1995, Flash (nee Future Splash) was a dev tool for designers. Design, animate, optionally code, then ship to production on any device. For that connection between design and code [and the imaginativeness, the creative empowerment!] there's still a big ol' Flash-shaped hole in the world. [1] More recently, in the game industry, Unity brought together design and code in a compelling way — by integrating existing tools. E.g. do your 3D modeling in Maya, do your coding in Visual Studio; find a common workflow to design and code together for any platform through Unity. This has worked well enough for Unity to capture > 50% market share in the game industry over the course of the last ~decade. The key to this problem is a workflow-unifying tool that 1.) enables designers and developers to create software together through comfortable + familiar tools 2.) ships that software to every device Like Unity. Like Flash. It's been done before. [1] I'm passionate enough about this subject that I've dedicated my career to it. I'm on the Haiku team (YC W18) and we've taken a lot of inspiration from Flash, Unity, and modern software practices to build a cross-platform solution that allows designers and developers to create software together. https://www.haiku.ai/ https://www.haiku.ai/

faitswulff 9y ago
As an aside, are there any reasons not to use Unity for a typical web app? EDIT - took a look at Haiku, looks great!
- _betty_ 9y ago
  Unity comes with a 30+ second load time and enough CPU to keep mobile users away. Also no graceful fallback for IE.
  - faitswulff 9y ago
    Ah, I meant mobile apps, not web app. Too late to edit. If there's a similar startup time, though, that's an excellent point.
michaelmrose 9y ago
I remember this massive sites over slow connections along with a great intro movie before I could view the actual site. I do not long for bygone days.
- oblio 9y ago
  Flash also came with the first truly interactive sites no the web (where it has been surpassed by HTML5) and with a ton of games (where it hasn't been surpassed). People may ignore it cause it's not "serious", but gaming in all its forms is a huge chunk of computing and it's only going to get bigger. Smartphones are taking over the roles previously held by consoles and before them by PCs, as the foremost gaming platform. And that was something that blindsided people at first, because everybody focuses on the "serious" use cases. Ignore gaming at your own peril :)
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    >People may ignore it cause it's not "serious", but gaming in all its forms is a huge chunk of computing and it's only going to get bigger. This game is built in HTML5 and is even on Steam, and is free. It's quite impressive. (gets overloaded on multiplayer sometimes, lag and such) http://www.istrolid.com/ http://www.istrolid.com/
- zackbrown 9y ago
  Your quip here ignores the original conversation, which is about "dev tools for designers." You also conflate the "bygone days" of slower connections with the "bygone days" of monolithic rich media binaries/downloads. Average web page size has increased dramatically over the last decade [1][2], suggesting "massive sites" are more of a today-problem than a bygone one. I understand "Flash" was the trigger-word here, and it is for a lot of people. "Flash Player" the consumer experience was fundamentally different from "Flash," the creation environment. Flash the "dev tool for designers" was the baby thrown out with the bath water. [1] https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ [2] https://www.yottaa.com/a-brief-history-of-web-page-size/ https://www.yottaa.com/a-brief-history-of-web-page-size/
davidjnelson 8y ago
That is very cool. Why is it a Mac app instead of a web app though? It appears to be focused on animation, not applications. Is that the case?
- zackbrown 8y ago
  Thanks! More platforms are coming soon; we started with a single platform (Mac) so we could launch and iterate. Our animation engine IS a UI engine, and we decided to ship an "interactive animation builder" as its own thing. If you can make any pixel render any value at any time, you can express any UI. Component composition, layouts, form controls, and more are coming soon.
  - davidjnelson 8y ago
    Sounds awesome!

faitswulff 9y ago

As an aside, are there any reasons not to use Unity for a typical web app? EDIT - took a look at Haiku, looks great!

_betty_ 9y ago
Unity comes with a 30+ second load time and enough CPU to keep mobile users away. Also no graceful fallback for IE.
- faitswulff 9y ago
  Ah, I meant mobile apps, not web app. Too late to edit. If there's a similar startup time, though, that's an excellent point.

michaelmrose 9y ago

I remember this massive sites over slow connections along with a great intro movie before I could view the actual site. I do not long for bygone days.

oblio 9y ago
Flash also came with the first truly interactive sites no the web (where it has been surpassed by HTML5) and with a ton of games (where it hasn't been surpassed). People may ignore it cause it's not "serious", but gaming in all its forms is a huge chunk of computing and it's only going to get bigger. Smartphones are taking over the roles previously held by consoles and before them by PCs, as the foremost gaming platform. And that was something that blindsided people at first, because everybody focuses on the "serious" use cases. Ignore gaming at your own peril :)
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  >People may ignore it cause it's not "serious", but gaming in all its forms is a huge chunk of computing and it's only going to get bigger. This game is built in HTML5 and is even on Steam, and is free. It's quite impressive. (gets overloaded on multiplayer sometimes, lag and such) http://www.istrolid.com/ http://www.istrolid.com/
zackbrown 9y ago
Your quip here ignores the original conversation, which is about "dev tools for designers." You also conflate the "bygone days" of slower connections with the "bygone days" of monolithic rich media binaries/downloads. Average web page size has increased dramatically over the last decade [1][2], suggesting "massive sites" are more of a today-problem than a bygone one. I understand "Flash" was the trigger-word here, and it is for a lot of people. "Flash Player" the consumer experience was fundamentally different from "Flash," the creation environment. Flash the "dev tool for designers" was the baby thrown out with the bath water. [1] https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ [2] https://www.yottaa.com/a-brief-history-of-web-page-size/ https://www.yottaa.com/a-brief-history-of-web-page-size/

davidjnelson 8y ago

That is very cool. Why is it a Mac app instead of a web app though? It appears to be focused on animation, not applications. Is that the case?

zackbrown 8y ago
Thanks! More platforms are coming soon; we started with a single platform (Mac) so we could launch and iterate. Our animation engine IS a UI engine, and we decided to ship an "interactive animation builder" as its own thing. If you can make any pixel render any value at any time, you can express any UI. Component composition, layouts, form controls, and more are coming soon.
- davidjnelson 8y ago
  Sounds awesome!