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The change in dev culture worries me more than the change in technology. At least Flash sites used to be considered bad taste. Dare to grumble about something u

by Pete_D 7y ago

The change in dev culture worries me more than the change in technology. At least Flash sites used to be considered bad taste. Dare to grumble about something unnecessarily requiring gratuitous JS now, and you'll get berated as an out-of-touch Luddite who needs to shut up and get with the times.

throwaway894345 7y ago
My impression was the criticisms of flash stemmed from its security issues, it’s closed nature, it’s relative unfamiliarity (compared to popular languages of the time), and the nuisance that was making sure you had the right version running on your machine at any given time. Modern JavaScript addressed these issues, hence its popularity over Flash. This doesn’t endorse the gratuitous application of JS for fundamentally static content, but it sets the context for your perceived “shift in dev culture”.
- als0 7y ago
  > Modern JavaScript addressed these issues, hence its popularity over Flash I think that while this is technically true, technical adequacy didn't lure developers away from Flash player. I believe that the real turning point was when Apple decided to break Adobe's monopoly on the web by disallowing Flash player on all their products.
  - throwaway894345 7y ago
    I agree that that was a turning point for usage, but we're discussing popularity among developers. Flash was unpopular among developers long before Apple banned it.
    - als0 7y ago
      Flash was on approximately 30% of websites before. It's hard to understand the argument that it was unpopular amongst devs.
      - throwaway894345 7y ago
        Devs hated Flash for all of the reasons cited above, but browsers didn't support anything better for many use cases.
        ppseafield 7y ago
        Indeed. As an example for a long time you had to have Flash to play a video on your page. The HTML5 video support eventually ended the need for Flash to do this, but it came much later and very slowly became supported cross-browser.
  - jayflux 7y ago
    Although that event was a nail in the coffin, developers were moving away from flash long before Apple banned it.
- pmontra 7y ago
  One of the reasons of the downfall of Flash were those tiny Flash sites in the middle of a full screen page when we suddenly moved from small screens to 1366x768 or better. Many sites didn't have the resources to upgrade and started looking like something 100 years old.
  - bm98 7y ago
    I always thought the primary driver of the demise of Flash was that Apple simply decided not to support it in iOS Safari. Is that not right?
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Apple did decide to not support it, but they didn't decide not to support a thriving product - it's like 3 1/4 floppy disks, when the iMac decided not to include a 3 1/4 drive people grumbled but it was mostly dead tech, writable CDs had become wide spread enough to obsolete it - with flash, when Apple decided to drop support, they did so in an era where preferred alternatives already existed and the tech was thoroughly reviled - so Apple put the final nail in the coffin, but flash was already in the ground at that point.
      - tzs 7y ago
        > when the iMac decided not to include a 3 1/4 drive people grumbled but it was mostly dead tech, writable CDs had become wide spread enough to obsolete it The G3 iMac did not include a CD writer, so if you wanted to use writable CD to get data out of your iMac, you needed to buy an external drive. You aren't quite right on writable CD being wide spread then--you are early by at least a year or two. When the G3 iMac came out CD-R drives were still above $300, and CD-RW drives were above $450. CD-R discs were around $2 a disc, and CD-RW discs were more like $15-20 a disc. (I'm getting prices from the November 1998 issue of MacWorld). My recollection is that the usual ways people dealt with the lack of floppy were: 1. External floppy drive. 2. Iomega Zip drive. An external Zip drive suitable for use with the G3 iMac was about $120 when that iMac came out. 3. Ethernet to exchange files with another computer on the LAN that does have a floppy.
root_axis 7y ago
By definition, everyone agrees that "gratuitous" use of JS is bad. You're glossing over the nuance of the debate which comes down to the specifics of when something is actually gratuitous.
- salawat 7y ago
  You mean when the amount of JS you have to download eclipses the size of the original DOOM executable?

by Pete_D 7y ago

throwaway894345 7y ago

My impression was the criticisms of flash stemmed from its security issues, it’s closed nature, it’s relative unfamiliarity (compared to popular languages of the time), and the nuisance that was making sure you had the right version running on your machine at any given time. Modern JavaScript addressed these issues, hence its popularity over Flash. This doesn’t endorse the gratuitous application of JS for fundamentally static content, but it sets the context for your perceived “shift in dev culture”.

als0 7y ago
> Modern JavaScript addressed these issues, hence its popularity over Flash I think that while this is technically true, technical adequacy didn't lure developers away from Flash player. I believe that the real turning point was when Apple decided to break Adobe's monopoly on the web by disallowing Flash player on all their products.
- throwaway894345 7y ago
  I agree that that was a turning point for usage, but we're discussing popularity among developers. Flash was unpopular among developers long before Apple banned it.
  - als0 7y ago
    Flash was on approximately 30% of websites before. It's hard to understand the argument that it was unpopular amongst devs.
    - throwaway894345 7y ago
      Devs hated Flash for all of the reasons cited above, but browsers didn't support anything better for many use cases.
      - ppseafield 7y ago
        Indeed. As an example for a long time you had to have Flash to play a video on your page. The HTML5 video support eventually ended the need for Flash to do this, but it came much later and very slowly became supported cross-browser.
- jayflux 7y ago
  Although that event was a nail in the coffin, developers were moving away from flash long before Apple banned it.
pmontra 7y ago
One of the reasons of the downfall of Flash were those tiny Flash sites in the middle of a full screen page when we suddenly moved from small screens to 1366x768 or better. Many sites didn't have the resources to upgrade and started looking like something 100 years old.
- bm98 7y ago
  I always thought the primary driver of the demise of Flash was that Apple simply decided not to support it in iOS Safari. Is that not right?
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Apple did decide to not support it, but they didn't decide not to support a thriving product - it's like 3 1/4 floppy disks, when the iMac decided not to include a 3 1/4 drive people grumbled but it was mostly dead tech, writable CDs had become wide spread enough to obsolete it - with flash, when Apple decided to drop support, they did so in an era where preferred alternatives already existed and the tech was thoroughly reviled - so Apple put the final nail in the coffin, but flash was already in the ground at that point.
    - tzs 7y ago
      > when the iMac decided not to include a 3 1/4 drive people grumbled but it was mostly dead tech, writable CDs had become wide spread enough to obsolete it The G3 iMac did not include a CD writer, so if you wanted to use writable CD to get data out of your iMac, you needed to buy an external drive. You aren't quite right on writable CD being wide spread then--you are early by at least a year or two. When the G3 iMac came out CD-R drives were still above $300, and CD-RW drives were above $450. CD-R discs were around $2 a disc, and CD-RW discs were more like $15-20 a disc. (I'm getting prices from the November 1998 issue of MacWorld). My recollection is that the usual ways people dealt with the lack of floppy were: 1. External floppy drive. 2. Iomega Zip drive. An external Zip drive suitable for use with the G3 iMac was about $120 when that iMac came out. 3. Ethernet to exchange files with another computer on the LAN that does have a floppy.

root_axis 7y ago

By definition, everyone agrees that "gratuitous" use of JS is bad. You're glossing over the nuance of the debate which comes down to the specifics of when something is actually gratuitous.

salawat 7y ago
You mean when the amount of JS you have to download eclipses the size of the original DOOM executable?