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I think by far the biggest problem Adobe has to deal with is that there are so many inexperienced software developers who have taken up writing Flash applicatio

I think by far the biggest problem Adobe has to deal with is that there are so many inexperienced software developers who have taken up writing Flash applications. These new developers' lack of knowledge is what causes these applications to have poor performance, not any particular inefficiencies in the Flash platform itself. It probably stems from the fact that the development studio is designed more for artists than developers, allowing artists to toy with adding functionality to their creations but not really giving them the years of training it requires to understand performance implications. Adobe can't really make this claim, even though they are fully aware of it, because it is never good to badmouth your customers. So they are left with taking the heat for them instead. Contrast this to the native Android or iOS development environments which cater to experienced software developers.

tomkarlo 15y ago
Good to point this out... Flash works because the desktop platform has such a huge excess of computing resource relative to the needs of the applications built in Flash that some inefficiency in the name of an easier developer experience is no problem. On mobile phones, where you're almost always pushing the envelope in terms of available memory and CPU cycles if you want to do anything interesting, this suddenly becomes a huge problem.
michaelpinto 15y ago
When it comes to ActionScript the problem isn't so much creatives trying to write code (they'll do stuff in the score) but more self taught programmers who may not be that experienced. Although you could level the same charge at other languages like PHP that attract production people who are looking to do more cut-and-paste than anything else. Another issue is that Flash projects can be very client driven, and more often than not advertising clients don't always grok tech issues. Although I feel that Adobe has to take some credit for the structure and evolution of Flash. Adobe has always been more about adding 50 average features to sell a software suite than to focus on better/faster/stable. Unlike Microsoft who owns the OS or Apple who makes hardware their core business is selling new tools, so there is no "bigger picture". The result is bloatware.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  Most Adobe software is bloated (Creative Suite and Acrobat, in particular), but I don't think it is fair to call Flash bloated. The Macromedia Flash dev team has always been very conscious about Flash's download size, allocating code size budgets for new features. Here are the historical file sizes of the Flash Player installer (compressed .exe for Windows ActiveX Control): * Flash Player 2 (1997) = 0.2 MB * * Flash Player 3 (1998) = 0.2 MB * * Flash Player 4 (1999) = 0.3 MB ** * Flash Player 5 (2000) = 0.3 MB ** * Flash Player 6 (2002) = 0.5 MB *** * Flash Player 7 (2003) = 0.6 MB *** * Flash Player 8 (2005) = 0.8 MB **** * Flash Player 9 (2006) = 1.5 MB ******** (first Flash release after Adobe acquired Macromedia) * Flash Player 10 (2008) = 1.9 MB ********** * Flash Player 10.1 (2010) = 2.7 MB ************** * Flash Player 10.2 (2011) = 2.7 MB ************** * Flash Player 10.3 (2011) = 2.9 MB ***************
  - michaelpinto 15y ago
    By bloated I mean interface complexity rather than physical size. Once upon a time Adobe really understood interface design, but these days their apps feel like a total mess to me. The point of every upgrade seems to be to add a stray feature and move some buttons around. And then they have to make programs like bridge that talk to other programs. And then the programs keep asking to be updated every five minutes like a kitty that's hungry. In fact I'm looking at my CS3 icons vs my CS5 icons in my dock and even the new icons looked bloated. In fact even the ordering process of upgrading CS is bloated —- it was as if I had to read a manual to figure what the differences were and what the upgrade cost. And I say this as someone who has used their software since Photoshop 1.0 and grew up in PageMaker (which to be fair was Aldus). And did I mention that it took me longer to install the CS suite than to upgrade to Windows 7??? And I didn't even install all every package (and it still put code from some of those programs on my harddrive).
lukifer 15y ago
This may be partially true, but it doesn't explain why Flash for Linux and Mac typically can't play back video without stuttering.

tomkarlo 15y ago

Good to point this out... Flash works because the desktop platform has such a huge excess of computing resource relative to the needs of the applications built in Flash that some inefficiency in the name of an easier developer experience is no problem. On mobile phones, where you're almost always pushing the envelope in terms of available memory and CPU cycles if you want to do anything interesting, this suddenly becomes a huge problem.

michaelpinto 15y ago

When it comes to ActionScript the problem isn't so much creatives trying to write code (they'll do stuff in the score) but more self taught programmers who may not be that experienced. Although you could level the same charge at other languages like PHP that attract production people who are looking to do more cut-and-paste than anything else. Another issue is that Flash projects can be very client driven, and more often than not advertising clients don't always grok tech issues. Although I feel that Adobe has to take some credit for the structure and evolution of Flash. Adobe has always been more about adding 50 average features to sell a software suite than to focus on better/faster/stable. Unlike Microsoft who owns the OS or Apple who makes hardware their core business is selling new tools, so there is no "bigger picture". The result is bloatware.

cpeterso 15y ago
Most Adobe software is bloated (Creative Suite and Acrobat, in particular), but I don't think it is fair to call Flash bloated. The Macromedia Flash dev team has always been very conscious about Flash's download size, allocating code size budgets for new features. Here are the historical file sizes of the Flash Player installer (compressed .exe for Windows ActiveX Control): * Flash Player 2 (1997) = 0.2 MB * * Flash Player 3 (1998) = 0.2 MB * * Flash Player 4 (1999) = 0.3 MB ** * Flash Player 5 (2000) = 0.3 MB ** * Flash Player 6 (2002) = 0.5 MB *** * Flash Player 7 (2003) = 0.6 MB *** * Flash Player 8 (2005) = 0.8 MB **** * Flash Player 9 (2006) = 1.5 MB ******** (first Flash release after Adobe acquired Macromedia) * Flash Player 10 (2008) = 1.9 MB ********** * Flash Player 10.1 (2010) = 2.7 MB ************** * Flash Player 10.2 (2011) = 2.7 MB ************** * Flash Player 10.3 (2011) = 2.9 MB ***************
- michaelpinto 15y ago
  By bloated I mean interface complexity rather than physical size. Once upon a time Adobe really understood interface design, but these days their apps feel like a total mess to me. The point of every upgrade seems to be to add a stray feature and move some buttons around. And then they have to make programs like bridge that talk to other programs. And then the programs keep asking to be updated every five minutes like a kitty that's hungry. In fact I'm looking at my CS3 icons vs my CS5 icons in my dock and even the new icons looked bloated. In fact even the ordering process of upgrading CS is bloated —- it was as if I had to read a manual to figure what the differences were and what the upgrade cost. And I say this as someone who has used their software since Photoshop 1.0 and grew up in PageMaker (which to be fair was Aldus). And did I mention that it took me longer to install the CS suite than to upgrade to Windows 7??? And I didn't even install all every package (and it still put code from some of those programs on my harddrive).

lukifer 15y ago

This may be partially true, but it doesn't explain why Flash for Linux and Mac typically can't play back video without stuttering.