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Related https://thehistoryofweb.design/ https://thehistoryofweb.design/ The book is an interesting read. The death of Flash feels like the start of a dark age

Related https://thehistoryofweb.design/ https://thehistoryofweb.design/ The book is an interesting read. The death of Flash feels like the start of a dark age for web design when you compare what came before with what came now. Granted, this may be less due to the death of Flash and more due to marketers and UX professionals trying to simplify the journey from visit to purchase.

Aldipower 2y ago
I was an "ActionScript 3" developer around 2010s targeting browser, but also offline "Rich Internet Applications". Together with our designers, whom worked in Adobe Flash, we had a tremendous throughput of production ready applications. Today I program React.js/TypeScript applications. What a slow turtled pace of getting things done. :( And of course very very expensive to develop. And a lot of things aren't even possible anymore. Of course, the Flash platform had it's downsides too, but in terms of throughput and productivity, this was very very great.
reaperducer 2y ago
The death of Flash feels like the start of a dark age for web design when you compare what came before with what came now. People romanticize Flash these days. Especially people who weren't old enough to struggle with it. Used improperly – as it very often was – Flash was a resource hog far beyond even the craziest of today's web sites. In many circumstances it could actually crash your computer. Not just the browser, but the entire machine. Sure, the operating system and the browser were complicit, but I'm not going to blame a broken window for not being bulletproof. Plus, it seemed like there was forever update after update after update every time you tried to view a fancy web site. Updating plugins isn't a big deal today. It was a big deal when it happened over a 56k dialup connection. Can you imagine someone today thinking, "Oh, this looks like an interesting web site. I'd better close every other window and program on my computer, so it doesn't crash." It's unthinkable. I hate that today's web sites are all boring and desaturated and flat. But I love that I can browse the web and keep a dozen other programs open and doing work at the same time. Watching all of the new things people are doing with canvas and WebGPU and whatnot makes me think we're heading back to the bad old days of Flash. It seems like an arms race between people who want to turn a browser into an operating system, and browser makers trying to keep everything tidy.
- nativeit 2y ago
  Yes, I loved Flash and ActionScript as a designer, but later viewed it as indistinguishable from malware as an IT support tech. It was frankly the worst, in terms of security whack-a-mole, and because it required patching so frequently, opened up a ton of genuinely malicious actors who could trick even competent people into clicking and installing malware.
  - grishka 2y ago
    The technology was, and still is, amazing. It's unmatched by anything in the modern days. Supposed modern replacements require you to write non-trivial code just to get started, while flash introduced programming very gently. You could get reasonably far with just `goToAndStop(frame)`. The official implementation, on the other hand, was terrible. Thankfully Ruffle exists. It's written in Rust and at this point it flawlessly plays most of my flash game collection. Now if only we had open-source flash authoring software...
- Bjorkbat 2y ago
  I never developed with Flash, but I grew up on Flash media, in particular old Newgrounds Flash games / movies. I remember some of the pains of the day. The fact that Flash media usually came with a loading bar is seems quaint compared to now when websites are expected to load in mere seconds. To some extent I'm glad we live in a time where websites are lean and efficient for the reasons you mentioned, but man, I miss the days when the internet was actually worth exploring.
- MarcoZavala 2y ago
  [dead]
- ttepasse 2y ago
  I miss the creative explosions of Flash games. Even with Canvas and WASM today there is nothing which comes close. My favourite casual puzzler was made in Flash and published in 2010, the same year, Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash". Thankfully then the developers developed a sequel as an iOS app which took advantage of the iPhones sensor. In 2010 in looked for a short time that creative iPhone games could take the crown of Flash. The sequel died in the 32bitocalpse of iOS 9.
skeeter2020 2y ago
As a developer I really miss the Flash books; they were a beautiful, glossy, coffee-table quality. I think it was the designer-bent audience. There were some good programming books but nothing like the Flash ones!

Aldipower 2y ago

I was an "ActionScript 3" developer around 2010s targeting browser, but also offline "Rich Internet Applications". Together with our designers, whom worked in Adobe Flash, we had a tremendous throughput of production ready applications. Today I program React.js/TypeScript applications. What a slow turtled pace of getting things done. :( And of course very very expensive to develop. And a lot of things aren't even possible anymore. Of course, the Flash platform had it's downsides too, but in terms of throughput and productivity, this was very very great.

reaperducer 2y ago

The death of Flash feels like the start of a dark age for web design when you compare what came before with what came now. People romanticize Flash these days. Especially people who weren't old enough to struggle with it. Used improperly – as it very often was – Flash was a resource hog far beyond even the craziest of today's web sites. In many circumstances it could actually crash your computer. Not just the browser, but the entire machine. Sure, the operating system and the browser were complicit, but I'm not going to blame a broken window for not being bulletproof. Plus, it seemed like there was forever update after update after update every time you tried to view a fancy web site. Updating plugins isn't a big deal today. It was a big deal when it happened over a 56k dialup connection. Can you imagine someone today thinking, "Oh, this looks like an interesting web site. I'd better close every other window and program on my computer, so it doesn't crash." It's unthinkable. I hate that today's web sites are all boring and desaturated and flat. But I love that I can browse the web and keep a dozen other programs open and doing work at the same time. Watching all of the new things people are doing with canvas and WebGPU and whatnot makes me think we're heading back to the bad old days of Flash. It seems like an arms race between people who want to turn a browser into an operating system, and browser makers trying to keep everything tidy.

nativeit 2y ago
Yes, I loved Flash and ActionScript as a designer, but later viewed it as indistinguishable from malware as an IT support tech. It was frankly the worst, in terms of security whack-a-mole, and because it required patching so frequently, opened up a ton of genuinely malicious actors who could trick even competent people into clicking and installing malware.
- grishka 2y ago
  The technology was, and still is, amazing. It's unmatched by anything in the modern days. Supposed modern replacements require you to write non-trivial code just to get started, while flash introduced programming very gently. You could get reasonably far with just `goToAndStop(frame)`. The official implementation, on the other hand, was terrible. Thankfully Ruffle exists. It's written in Rust and at this point it flawlessly plays most of my flash game collection. Now if only we had open-source flash authoring software...
Bjorkbat 2y ago
I never developed with Flash, but I grew up on Flash media, in particular old Newgrounds Flash games / movies. I remember some of the pains of the day. The fact that Flash media usually came with a loading bar is seems quaint compared to now when websites are expected to load in mere seconds. To some extent I'm glad we live in a time where websites are lean and efficient for the reasons you mentioned, but man, I miss the days when the internet was actually worth exploring.
MarcoZavala 2y ago
[dead]
ttepasse 2y ago
I miss the creative explosions of Flash games. Even with Canvas and WASM today there is nothing which comes close. My favourite casual puzzler was made in Flash and published in 2010, the same year, Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash". Thankfully then the developers developed a sequel as an iOS app which took advantage of the iPhones sensor. In 2010 in looked for a short time that creative iPhone games could take the crown of Flash. The sequel died in the 32bitocalpse of iOS 9.

skeeter2020 2y ago

As a developer I really miss the Flash books; they were a beautiful, glossy, coffee-table quality. I think it was the designer-bent audience. There were some good programming books but nothing like the Flash ones!