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Why do you think the children of Flash were not inspired to create the next generation of that tool? I’ll throw out one theory: It attracted the most creative

Why do you think the children of Flash were not inspired to create the next generation of that tool? I’ll throw out one theory: It attracted the most creative developers and not necessarily the most technical. There is a difference and both belong on a team.

tombert 2y ago
Almost certainly that's a component. Still, I wish someone would make a clone of the Adobe Animate program that directly exports to WASM, with all the artsy bells and whistles that I loved about it. Specifically, I would like something that I don't have to pay a monthly fee for forever. It was my first "real" experience with writing code, and I know I'm far from alone with that. Pico8 and Game Maker and GDevelop and Scirra Construct are still fun, so it's not like there's a shortage of game making toolkits for younger people to get into this stuff. I just miss Flash in particular.
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  Hmm. You ever just stumble upon your reason for living?
  - tombert 2y ago
    Ha, if you were to make a decent Flash clone I would pay a not-insignificant amount of money for it as long as it’s not a subscription thing. I don’t have enough interest in that level of programming to make it myself.
    - praptak 2y ago
      My theory is that it's hard to create a usable tool in general and even harder if the domain is complex. Interactive animations are pretty complex.
      - tombert 2y ago
        Yeah, there’s some truth to that. It also doesn’t help that it’s two pronged: Flash is an animation tool and a software development environment. There are some great animation software packages out there like Toonboom or even something like Moho or Opentoonz, but as far as I am aware they do not have the same kind of direct integration with a programming language like Flash did. On the other end of the end of the spectrum, you have tools like Game Maker which do have programming as a core feature, but you’re expected to do animations elsewhere and import them in. So Flash is a competent tool across two complicated domains.
watwut 2y ago
It is a lot of work and does not have much potential to earn money. Simple as that People, including developers, consistently underestimate work that needs to go into developing good user facing tools. And a lot of that work is not fun, not exciting, just work you have to do.

tombert 2y ago

Almost certainly that's a component. Still, I wish someone would make a clone of the Adobe Animate program that directly exports to WASM, with all the artsy bells and whistles that I loved about it. Specifically, I would like something that I don't have to pay a monthly fee for forever. It was my first "real" experience with writing code, and I know I'm far from alone with that. Pico8 and Game Maker and GDevelop and Scirra Construct are still fun, so it's not like there's a shortage of game making toolkits for younger people to get into this stuff. I just miss Flash in particular.

bloomingkales 2y ago
Hmm. You ever just stumble upon your reason for living?
- tombert 2y ago
  Ha, if you were to make a decent Flash clone I would pay a not-insignificant amount of money for it as long as it’s not a subscription thing. I don’t have enough interest in that level of programming to make it myself.
  - praptak 2y ago
    My theory is that it's hard to create a usable tool in general and even harder if the domain is complex. Interactive animations are pretty complex.
    - tombert 2y ago
      Yeah, there’s some truth to that. It also doesn’t help that it’s two pronged: Flash is an animation tool and a software development environment. There are some great animation software packages out there like Toonboom or even something like Moho or Opentoonz, but as far as I am aware they do not have the same kind of direct integration with a programming language like Flash did. On the other end of the end of the spectrum, you have tools like Game Maker which do have programming as a core feature, but you’re expected to do animations elsewhere and import them in. So Flash is a competent tool across two complicated domains.

watwut 2y ago

It is a lot of work and does not have much potential to earn money. Simple as that People, including developers, consistently underestimate work that needs to go into developing good user facing tools. And a lot of that work is not fun, not exciting, just work you have to do.