7 ms·

I wrote AS3 and mxml for adobe flex for several years. AS3 was in many ways ecmascript 4, and was IMO pretty far ahead of its time. Lots of things we get excite

I wrote AS3 and mxml for adobe flex for several years. AS3 was in many ways ecmascript 4, and was IMO pretty far ahead of its time. Lots of things we get excited for today feels like stuff we took for granted on the web in the flash player ecosystem years ago. Don't get me wrong, there were times where it was a nightmare, but back when cross browser javascript was a struggle if it was even possible, we were able to ship a lot of great stuff.

keyle 3y ago
I too did that for many years. I'd say that AS3 wasn't ahead of its time, I'd say that we were sent back in time when we had to abandon Flash thanks to Steve Jobs and the bend-over Adobe CEO at the time. AS3 was super cool, easy to learn and safe to scale amongst many developers. Flash had gotten pretty darn fast near the end... And it was all sent down the toilet.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > we had to abandon Flash thanks to Steve Jobs and the bend-over Adobe CEO at the time For the record, that is exactly how it did not happen.
  - keyle 3y ago
    I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. One day, Steve Jobs made an announcement that Flash was crapware and had to die for standards (sic!) I shook my head in disbelief. The same week, the CEO of Adobe (some shmuck) went to CNN to address what Steve Jobs had said earlier this week. I fully expected a rebuttal, but instead, NOPE: he totally and literally threw his product under the bus, on the world stage. Flash was dead. Its replacement was said to be coming, and yet nothing good came out. Javascript at the time was pitiful. Typescript didn't exist yet, and MVVM in HTML wasn't a thing. We were back to web 1.0.
    - jadbox 3y ago
      This roughly did happen. Apple decided suddenly and publicly that it would reject Flash (and Air), and this decision was a major part of closing the flash project. Flash gaming was a billion dollar market at the time that Apple knew they could convert the big dev shops into native app developers for their app store (see Zynga and others) by enforcing native-only app development. This was the last straw for flash, which was already struggling for funding. See, Flash was already a rather unprofitable project, having no app store, no ad network, or payments platform. The Flex/Flash dev licenses made only peanuts. With Apple closing down roads to adoption, this caused Adobe to finally reconsider its long term investment in runtime engines. source: flash team friends edit: For history completeness, here is CNET's article with Apple's media statement on why it dropped flash. Job's statement was that Flash wasn't a good enough runtime to allow on iOS (or any runtime): https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-from-the-iphone/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-fro...
      - keyle 3y ago
        Thanks for clarifying, you explain it better than I remember it.
      - Lammy 3y ago
        > no app store, no ad network, or payments platform Please take me back to that world
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - mlunar 3y ago
      For what it's worth as another Flash/AIR developer, this is exactly how it happened. Apple is just very good at spinning the narrative in their favor, i.e. it was because of "stability/security/performance issues" and not "it's a potential App Store competitor, bury it now". See also: Apple preventing apps from downloading/including scripts dynamically (read: AIR), which was a total security risk, until it wasn't when they lifted the restriction years later when AIR was not so relevant anymore. Glad to be corrected tho
- Pikamander2 3y ago
  Killing browser plugins was the right decision; besides the poor performance and responsive design, they were a security nightmare with hundreds of unpatched issues. It can't be understated just how much safer visiting a random webpage is these days versus a decade or two ago. I loathe Apple, but their influence in killing plugins will go down as one of the most important steps forward in web development history. The only sad part is how many AS3 and Silverlight games just kinda disappeared into the void.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Better not have WebGL and WebGPU enabled, and hyperthreading disabled.
  - hipjiveguy 3y ago
    And browser extensions are better? I find so many people install browser extensions, not caring about the permissions, or even know if they're doing it, lol... way way more than they should. At least a company like Adobe that is well known, and would somewhat care about privacy/being hacked/etc, would be in the public eye. The real argument Steve Jobs should've forced was make it work for mobile. But that wasn't what he wanted - Flash was "free content/games", so he attacked it on one front, but won two. Sadly, Adobe didn't quite listen to the public, and he was charismatic and forceful, and won. Since Flash has been banished, so many artists and developers have wanted something that fit that middle ground as much as Flash did. Me too :D
taylorius 3y ago
I totally agree. I developed a 3D rendering engine using Flash + as3, and I think it's my favourite platform I've ever developed for. AS3 is a great language - Brendan Eich referred to it briefly in his Lex Fiedman interview, apparently it was essentially a potential successor to Javascript that never made it into the browser, which I found interesting. I wish it had become a new standard.

keyle 3y ago

I too did that for many years. I'd say that AS3 wasn't ahead of its time, I'd say that we were sent back in time when we had to abandon Flash thanks to Steve Jobs and the bend-over Adobe CEO at the time. AS3 was super cool, easy to learn and safe to scale amongst many developers. Flash had gotten pretty darn fast near the end... And it was all sent down the toilet.

kergonath 3y ago
> we had to abandon Flash thanks to Steve Jobs and the bend-over Adobe CEO at the time For the record, that is exactly how it did not happen.
- keyle 3y ago
  I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. One day, Steve Jobs made an announcement that Flash was crapware and had to die for standards (sic!) I shook my head in disbelief. The same week, the CEO of Adobe (some shmuck) went to CNN to address what Steve Jobs had said earlier this week. I fully expected a rebuttal, but instead, NOPE: he totally and literally threw his product under the bus, on the world stage. Flash was dead. Its replacement was said to be coming, and yet nothing good came out. Javascript at the time was pitiful. Typescript didn't exist yet, and MVVM in HTML wasn't a thing. We were back to web 1.0.
  - jadbox 3y ago
    This roughly did happen. Apple decided suddenly and publicly that it would reject Flash (and Air), and this decision was a major part of closing the flash project. Flash gaming was a billion dollar market at the time that Apple knew they could convert the big dev shops into native app developers for their app store (see Zynga and others) by enforcing native-only app development. This was the last straw for flash, which was already struggling for funding. See, Flash was already a rather unprofitable project, having no app store, no ad network, or payments platform. The Flex/Flash dev licenses made only peanuts. With Apple closing down roads to adoption, this caused Adobe to finally reconsider its long term investment in runtime engines. source: flash team friends edit: For history completeness, here is CNET's article with Apple's media statement on why it dropped flash. Job's statement was that Flash wasn't a good enough runtime to allow on iOS (or any runtime): https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-from-the-iphone/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-fro...
    - keyle 3y ago
      Thanks for clarifying, you explain it better than I remember it.
    - Lammy 3y ago
      > no app store, no ad network, or payments platform Please take me back to that world
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - mlunar 3y ago
    For what it's worth as another Flash/AIR developer, this is exactly how it happened. Apple is just very good at spinning the narrative in their favor, i.e. it was because of "stability/security/performance issues" and not "it's a potential App Store competitor, bury it now". See also: Apple preventing apps from downloading/including scripts dynamically (read: AIR), which was a total security risk, until it wasn't when they lifted the restriction years later when AIR was not so relevant anymore. Glad to be corrected tho
Pikamander2 3y ago
Killing browser plugins was the right decision; besides the poor performance and responsive design, they were a security nightmare with hundreds of unpatched issues. It can't be understated just how much safer visiting a random webpage is these days versus a decade or two ago. I loathe Apple, but their influence in killing plugins will go down as one of the most important steps forward in web development history. The only sad part is how many AS3 and Silverlight games just kinda disappeared into the void.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Better not have WebGL and WebGPU enabled, and hyperthreading disabled.
- hipjiveguy 3y ago
  And browser extensions are better? I find so many people install browser extensions, not caring about the permissions, or even know if they're doing it, lol... way way more than they should. At least a company like Adobe that is well known, and would somewhat care about privacy/being hacked/etc, would be in the public eye. The real argument Steve Jobs should've forced was make it work for mobile. But that wasn't what he wanted - Flash was "free content/games", so he attacked it on one front, but won two. Sadly, Adobe didn't quite listen to the public, and he was charismatic and forceful, and won. Since Flash has been banished, so many artists and developers have wanted something that fit that middle ground as much as Flash did. Me too :D

taylorius 3y ago

I totally agree. I developed a 3D rendering engine using Flash + as3, and I think it's my favourite platform I've ever developed for. AS3 is a great language - Brendan Eich referred to it briefly in his Lex Fiedman interview, apparently it was essentially a potential successor to Javascript that never made it into the browser, which I found interesting. I wish it had become a new standard.