4 ms·

It was also very possible to write a restaurants website that ran at 5fps on the fastest cpu at the time. and honestly that's why a lot of people wanted flash d

It was also very possible to write a restaurants website that ran at 5fps on the fastest cpu at the time. and honestly that's why a lot of people wanted flash dead.

bombcar 4y ago
People think of Flash and fondly remember HomestarRunner but that shit was EVERYWHERE for awhile, and not just in banner ads. Entire websites would be built in flash, and not well, either.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Marazan 4y ago
The same devs who write that restaurant website produce the same horrifically inefficient code in Javascript now. Flash wasn't the problem.
- mcdonje 4y ago
  Flash was part of that problem. The infrastructure and tooling should make the easy path relatively benign.
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
    [dead]
  - Marazan 4y ago
    Tye easy path was benign in Flash! Flash produced elegant, compact output if you executes the basics. The "problem" was that you could fuck up your SWF to incredible degrees and still get something that worked.
    - JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
      The problem was that creative people were intruding into the space of old school software developer mentalities and “standards” people. Flash devs got paid extremely well, were highly collaborative, and executed exceptionally fast. But they weren’t “doing it the proper way” and for some reason the software/tech industry at large needed to show Flash how it was meant to be done. No one yet figured out how to properly centre a div or agree on what was restful, but knew for sure Flash was doing it wrong because the <video> tag was now only 4 short years away from viable browser penetration. And now we finally made it. The 2d canvas context can fill paths, you can loop an audio file, you can even centre divs. You just gotta duck tape all that garbage together, manually through code, forget about animation authoring, in a dry as heck Node.js tooling ecosystem, and spend your nights replaying arguments you had with your co-workers about linting rules.
  - JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
    The ecosystem surrounding web standards make hard almost every use-case Flash had. The web standards and its implementation is a friggen mess. Try doing anything non-trivial with audio and you’ll see what I mean. Instead of slow animated restaurant website we now have blogspam recipe sites or slow electron apps. The web standards at the time could barely vertically centre a div, and many of the proponents of web standards had the gall to say the web standards would supersede Flash.
- ehutch79 4y ago
  You're not wrong.
stametseater 4y ago
This is why I hated flash. The websites for small non-technical businesses were god awful because the business owners, who didn't know better, asked for all kinds of superfluous animations. At least now that this same sort of crap is done in javascript, I can opt out of it by not enabling javascript and still usually have a workable website to read. But with flash there was no graceful degradation at all; you either ran flash and brought your computer to its knees, or you couldn't use the website at all. It was awful and the best thing Steve Jobs ever did was help nail the coffin shut.
- deely3 4y ago
  If you allow me.... > But with <javascript> there was no graceful degradation at all; you either ran <javacript> and brought your computer to its knees <with ads that cover 70% of page>, or you couldn't use the website at all. I remember times when flash is everwhere. Usually flash was present as ads, videoplayer, sometime as full website, and sometime only as fancy-colorful menu. Honestly, I don't see big difference between flash and javascript from user POV. Same sometime slowness, sometime lags, all the time ads, etc. etc.
  - baxtr 4y ago
    Huge difference IMO. JS can be used in moderation. That did not apply to Flash back in the day.

It was also very possible to write a restaurants website that ran at 5fps on the fastest cpu at the time. and honestly that's why a lot of people wanted flash dead.

bombcar 4y ago

People think of Flash and fondly remember HomestarRunner but that shit was EVERYWHERE for awhile, and not just in banner ads. Entire websites would be built in flash, and not well, either.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Marazan 4y ago

The same devs who write that restaurant website produce the same horrifically inefficient code in Javascript now. Flash wasn't the problem.

mcdonje 4y ago
Flash was part of that problem. The infrastructure and tooling should make the easy path relatively benign.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
  [dead]
- Marazan 4y ago
  Tye easy path was benign in Flash! Flash produced elegant, compact output if you executes the basics. The "problem" was that you could fuck up your SWF to incredible degrees and still get something that worked.
  - JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
    The problem was that creative people were intruding into the space of old school software developer mentalities and “standards” people. Flash devs got paid extremely well, were highly collaborative, and executed exceptionally fast. But they weren’t “doing it the proper way” and for some reason the software/tech industry at large needed to show Flash how it was meant to be done. No one yet figured out how to properly centre a div or agree on what was restful, but knew for sure Flash was doing it wrong because the <video> tag was now only 4 short years away from viable browser penetration. And now we finally made it. The 2d canvas context can fill paths, you can loop an audio file, you can even centre divs. You just gotta duck tape all that garbage together, manually through code, forget about animation authoring, in a dry as heck Node.js tooling ecosystem, and spend your nights replaying arguments you had with your co-workers about linting rules.
- JoeyJoJoJr 4y ago
  The ecosystem surrounding web standards make hard almost every use-case Flash had. The web standards and its implementation is a friggen mess. Try doing anything non-trivial with audio and you’ll see what I mean. Instead of slow animated restaurant website we now have blogspam recipe sites or slow electron apps. The web standards at the time could barely vertically centre a div, and many of the proponents of web standards had the gall to say the web standards would supersede Flash.
ehutch79 4y ago
You're not wrong.

stametseater 4y ago

This is why I hated flash. The websites for small non-technical businesses were god awful because the business owners, who didn't know better, asked for all kinds of superfluous animations. At least now that this same sort of crap is done in javascript, I can opt out of it by not enabling javascript and still usually have a workable website to read. But with flash there was no graceful degradation at all; you either ran flash and brought your computer to its knees, or you couldn't use the website at all. It was awful and the best thing Steve Jobs ever did was help nail the coffin shut.

deely3 4y ago
If you allow me.... > But with <javascript> there was no graceful degradation at all; you either ran <javacript> and brought your computer to its knees <with ads that cover 70% of page>, or you couldn't use the website at all. I remember times when flash is everwhere. Usually flash was present as ads, videoplayer, sometime as full website, and sometime only as fancy-colorful menu. Honestly, I don't see big difference between flash and javascript from user POV. Same sometime slowness, sometime lags, all the time ads, etc. etc.
- baxtr 4y ago
  Huge difference IMO. JS can be used in moderation. That did not apply to Flash back in the day.