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How exactly are Flash and JavaScript different? I don't see the separate niches you envision these technologies occupying for the rest of their existence. And
by spoondan 16y ago
How exactly are Flash and JavaScript different? I don't see the separate niches you envision these technologies occupying for the rest of their existence.
And how can you say JavaScript "will never" kill Flash? Aren't Apple and JavaScript already hurting Flash's market share? Doesn't every major browser release leave less and less that Flash alone can do? Aren't we looking at an example of a major, mainstream brand avoiding Flash for a site? What is going to change over the next few years to reverse these trends?
- HNer 16y agoSo can html5 continually ping a variable (say a time point) while a video is playing, including other variables back to a third party server (if the video content was embeded via a jsonp wisget etc.) ??
- frevd 16y agoThat's the point - it can do whatever you can do, all technical prerequisites are available (threads, background-requests, runtime-dynamic code etc). Once the proper tools are available providing diverse standard functions, it will spread and be easier for non-developers.
- schwabacher 16y agoI don't want to weigh in on the flash/javascript debate, but couldn't you repeatedly change the src on a hidden image with get variables in the url?
- Hixie 16y agoSure. <video ontimeupdate="sendXHR(currentTime)" src="myvideo" controls></video> ...where "sendXHR()" is a five- to ten-line wrapper around XMLHttpRequest.
- coderdude 16y agoIndeed. So now browsers can finally start to do what Flash can do. This argument is only recently valid then.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- spoondan 16y agoHixie answered your specific question, but I think you're missing a very important point: "Doesn't every major browser release leave less and less that Flash alone can do?" There are some things (not this one) that Flash can do that browsers aren't yet able to do. The present limitations dictate what you can do today, but they have little relevance to the long-term discussion.
- mynameishere 16y agoThe thought of Apple killing flash just about makes me sick. I really don't want to be forced into paying the 50-100 percent Apple premium for hardware just because they managed to "kill" a technology everyone decided to hate for no reason.
- nfg 16y agoWhat are you talking about?
- mynameishere 16y agoDerp. There are many applications that I cannot run on my computer because my computer isn't an apple. All of these could have been written in flash, and thus been cross-platform. Apple doesn't like flash, because they want people tied to their platform. (Obviously, I'm not talking about plain javascript here, though.) One of these days, a "must have" killer app is going to come around--that could have been written in flash--that will force me to buy an Apple. At a ridiculous premium. I don't think that's too hard to understand, predict, or dislike, given that people have been bitching about a similar strategy from a similar company for many years.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- anthonyb 16y agoWhat are you talking about?
- delackner 16y agoMaybe he's a sock puppet that needs to back-fill some believable human look and feel?
- mynameishere 16y agoAre you really that confused? I'm not talking about javascript, browser-based applications here, but rather the various apps that run on Apple's proprietary hardware. I think I made that clear, and I thought it was pretty clear that Apple is trying very hard to kill flash and replace it with its own platform that depends upon its own hardware. This seems really, really simple to understand, but let me know if it's still confusing.