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"We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. As of today, there are significant performance and battery life gains to be had by disabling Flash Player on Mac OS

by tomlin 16y ago

"We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. As of today, there are significant performance and battery life gains to be had by disabling Flash Player on Mac OS X." No, we won't "cross that bridge". Colour me skeptic, but I've yet to see DF admit to any of the insufficiencies of HTML5 over Flash. When confronted with contrarian proofs, the average Steve Jobs allegiant will cite other FUD grab-bags (ex: security issues, battery life, etc.). It's tiring to watch intelligent people pushing HTML5 based on fallacy after fallacy. Everyone wants HTML5 to evolve, but not by the hand of bullshit.

statictype 16y ago
um, all he's saying is that we should wait for animated ads to show up in HTML5 and see what they are like before deciding how to disable them or even if it's required to do so.
- tomlin 16y ago
  We don't need to wait to see. We all know that advertisers will demand horrible HTML5 ads. Pretending they won't is embarrassingly hopeful.
  - beej71 16y ago
    Indeed, I've already seen them. Here's a short writeup of how one of them worked: http://www.google.com/reader/item/tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/e61ad0fa2304a1b1 http://www.google.com/reader/item/tag:google.com,2005:reader...
larrywright 16y ago
You're missing the point. I don't think anyone believes that HTML5 does everything Flash does. That said, for the things that people use Flash mostly for these days, such as video, audio, and animation, HTML5 does just fine. What people like Gruber are reacting to is the craptastic Flash ads that permeate websites today, and the negative effect that they have on performance and battery life.
- tomlin 16y ago
  I've only missed the point if Gruber's points are agnostic. I know they aren't. > video - kinda. The RTMP equivalent implementation isn't quiet as easy as RTMP. > animation - this is the kind of bs I'm talking about. Having done complex timeline animation in Flash and JS (with WebWorkers) I can say with all honesty that it is not just fine with HTML5+JS. JS-based timeline animation is clunky at best and incredibly time consuming.
  - look_lookatme 16y ago
    Why the downvotes here?
  - ugh 16y ago
    HTML5 and Javascript don’t have to be as good as Flash. They only have to capture the most common use cases.
    - tomlin 16y ago
      You're right, they don't. I'm still looking for where it is proven that a well-coded Flash site is inferior to a well-coded HTML5+JS site in terms of battery life. No one can seem to give a tangible, legible reason why Flash has the unreasonably holy authority to drain battery power.
      - raganwald 16y ago
        Ahh, the No True Scotsman fallacy again! Hamish: No Flash site is inferior to its HTML5 equivalent in terms of battery life. Angus: Youtube's Flash implementation uses more battery than their HTML5 equivalent on my machine. Hamish: No well-coded Flash site is inferior to its HTML5 equivalent in terms of battery life. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/No_true_Scots...
        tomlin 16y ago
kraemate 16y ago
Why is this blog even allowed on HN? Most of the posts submitted seem to be written by steve jobs himself, or whatever jobs wants to hear. Can anything come closer to an advertisement?
ubernostrum 16y ago
Hm. I read the article. I saw HTML5 mentioned as a fallback for YouTube videos. Which, um, works. I also saw discussion of ClickToFlash as an option for things you want to use and which don't have a non-Flash alternative. Which, um, is pretty darned sensible. The concluding line -- "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" -- is about the only position it's possible to have. Nobody knows what the future's going to look like, and sticking to something that really does have performance issues right now on the grounds that the replacement might become worse in the future is, well, not so sensible. So maybe you should talk to your optometrist, because you're apparently seeing things that aren't there.
- tomlin 16y ago
  Possibly. But I know that you don't need a time machine to confirm whether or not advertisers will abuse HTML5+JS. You know they will. With tongue in cheek, there is no advertisement="true" attribute on the canvas tag. If you were to block CANVAS or VIDEO you'd essentially be halting HTML5 progression. This concern, albeit not backed up with conjecture or reference, is that the use of CANVAS could actually cause some detriment to the HTML5 cause. Why shouldn't we anticipate this probability? Easy: we'll invariably end up with an answer we don't like and understand that an unfavorable result is to come. The more "Flash is the cause of..." narratives I read, the more obvious it becomes. This fight isn't about standards at all. Flash-driven restaurant sites didn't suddenly become awful. They always were. And Adobe didn't make those sites. Shoddy developers did. iTunes for Windows runs like a fat kid; no one is banging down Microsoft's door about it. When: * Adobe Photoshop crashes, blame Adobe. * iTunes runs like shit, blame Apple. * a Flash-based site crashes your browser, blame the developer who built it.
  - sudont 16y ago
    No. Flash itself is poorly coded for the mac. Grooveshark is currently in the background, not playing anything. On my work PC, running XP, it doesn't use any cpu at all. On my personal mac, it constantly hovers at 45% core usage, meaning if I open grooveshark at home, my fans kick on in a 60 degree room.
  - ubernostrum 16y ago
qwzybug 16y ago
See elsewhere in this thread: [Flash] appears to under-perform on every platform I have except Windows (Windows in VMware + Flash is better than native Mac Flash, I swear!). Flash has been an albatross for Mac users for a decade. It has performed terribly, crashed our browsers, and with the rise of YouTube &co. forced us to use it to watch videos via a hilarious, incredible, inefficient hack instead of a real native video player. We are really (and understandably) happy to get rid of it, especially if that means we get to skip the worst kinds of ads and online videos don't churn the CPU anymore. For all its usefulness, Flash just isn't worth the hassle for Mac users, and it's largely Adobe's fault that we find this to be the case.

by tomlin 16y ago

statictype 16y ago

um, all he's saying is that we should wait for animated ads to show up in HTML5 and see what they are like before deciding how to disable them or even if it's required to do so.

tomlin 16y ago
We don't need to wait to see. We all know that advertisers will demand horrible HTML5 ads. Pretending they won't is embarrassingly hopeful.
- beej71 16y ago
  Indeed, I've already seen them. Here's a short writeup of how one of them worked: http://www.google.com/reader/item/tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/e61ad0fa2304a1b1 http://www.google.com/reader/item/tag:google.com,2005:reader...

larrywright 16y ago

You're missing the point. I don't think anyone believes that HTML5 does everything Flash does. That said, for the things that people use Flash mostly for these days, such as video, audio, and animation, HTML5 does just fine. What people like Gruber are reacting to is the craptastic Flash ads that permeate websites today, and the negative effect that they have on performance and battery life.

tomlin 16y ago
I've only missed the point if Gruber's points are agnostic. I know they aren't. > video - kinda. The RTMP equivalent implementation isn't quiet as easy as RTMP. > animation - this is the kind of bs I'm talking about. Having done complex timeline animation in Flash and JS (with WebWorkers) I can say with all honesty that it is not just fine with HTML5+JS. JS-based timeline animation is clunky at best and incredibly time consuming.
- look_lookatme 16y ago
  Why the downvotes here?
- ugh 16y ago
  HTML5 and Javascript don’t have to be as good as Flash. They only have to capture the most common use cases.
  - tomlin 16y ago
    You're right, they don't. I'm still looking for where it is proven that a well-coded Flash site is inferior to a well-coded HTML5+JS site in terms of battery life. No one can seem to give a tangible, legible reason why Flash has the unreasonably holy authority to drain battery power.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Ahh, the No True Scotsman fallacy again! Hamish: No Flash site is inferior to its HTML5 equivalent in terms of battery life. Angus: Youtube's Flash implementation uses more battery than their HTML5 equivalent on my machine. Hamish: No well-coded Flash site is inferior to its HTML5 equivalent in terms of battery life. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/No_true_Scots...
      - tomlin 16y ago

kraemate 16y ago

Why is this blog even allowed on HN? Most of the posts submitted seem to be written by steve jobs himself, or whatever jobs wants to hear. Can anything come closer to an advertisement?

ubernostrum 16y ago

Hm. I read the article. I saw HTML5 mentioned as a fallback for YouTube videos. Which, um, works. I also saw discussion of ClickToFlash as an option for things you want to use and which don't have a non-Flash alternative. Which, um, is pretty darned sensible. The concluding line -- "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" -- is about the only position it's possible to have. Nobody knows what the future's going to look like, and sticking to something that really does have performance issues right now on the grounds that the replacement might become worse in the future is, well, not so sensible. So maybe you should talk to your optometrist, because you're apparently seeing things that aren't there.

tomlin 16y ago
Possibly. But I know that you don't need a time machine to confirm whether or not advertisers will abuse HTML5+JS. You know they will. With tongue in cheek, there is no advertisement="true" attribute on the canvas tag. If you were to block CANVAS or VIDEO you'd essentially be halting HTML5 progression. This concern, albeit not backed up with conjecture or reference, is that the use of CANVAS could actually cause some detriment to the HTML5 cause. Why shouldn't we anticipate this probability? Easy: we'll invariably end up with an answer we don't like and understand that an unfavorable result is to come. The more "Flash is the cause of..." narratives I read, the more obvious it becomes. This fight isn't about standards at all. Flash-driven restaurant sites didn't suddenly become awful. They always were. And Adobe didn't make those sites. Shoddy developers did. iTunes for Windows runs like a fat kid; no one is banging down Microsoft's door about it. When: * Adobe Photoshop crashes, blame Adobe. * iTunes runs like shit, blame Apple. * a Flash-based site crashes your browser, blame the developer who built it.
- sudont 16y ago
  No. Flash itself is poorly coded for the mac. Grooveshark is currently in the background, not playing anything. On my work PC, running XP, it doesn't use any cpu at all. On my personal mac, it constantly hovers at 45% core usage, meaning if I open grooveshark at home, my fans kick on in a 60 degree room.
- ubernostrum 16y ago

qwzybug 16y ago

See elsewhere in this thread: [Flash] appears to under-perform on every platform I have except Windows (Windows in VMware + Flash is better than native Mac Flash, I swear!). Flash has been an albatross for Mac users for a decade. It has performed terribly, crashed our browsers, and with the rise of YouTube &co. forced us to use it to watch videos via a hilarious, incredible, inefficient hack instead of a real native video player. We are really (and understandably) happy to get rid of it, especially if that means we get to skip the worst kinds of ads and online videos don't churn the CPU anymore. For all its usefulness, Flash just isn't worth the hassle for Mac users, and it's largely Adobe's fault that we find this to be the case.