4 ms·

I just don't get it - someone please smack me down and give me a convincing argument on how HTML5/CSS/JavaScript is a more innovative technology than Flash/Silv

I just don't get it - someone please smack me down and give me a convincing argument on how HTML5/CSS/JavaScript is a more innovative technology than Flash/Silverlight? The only pro I know of is that it runs on IOS and flash does not (actually flash does run on JailBroken IOS). In 3 years IOS will power less than 20% of mobile devices. What then? My big rub with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript and all this standards crap is that it moves sooooo slowly. I prefer innovation at whatever speed the minds of man can allow. Now we are restricted to creating frameworks built on top of (and limited by) HTML5 to create any kind of innovation (same with JavaScript) it makes me sick. I saw apps like this a decade ago written in Flash. I know that widespread compatibility is the reason that things like HTML5 win out, that and lazy developers who don't want technology to change/innovate because that would mean that they would have to learn something new more often. What is my solution? I prefer the plug-in model. I think the spec that browsers should follow is one for an secure and OPEN Plugin architecture. If this concept was adopted, we would have a lot more (and better) options besides HTML, Flash and Silverlight to write web apps in. I think of it like this. Look at the iPhone, I picture every app you download as basically being a plug-in for IOS. Each can be written with their own completely different language and UI markup (and many are). Over 30% of IOS apps are not written in C/Objective C. There are a myriad of tools, frameworks and development environments which compile other languages and link them against the IOS libraries. This is how the web should be. That is more OPEN than following a spec that is publicly available, it gives inventors/innovators much more FREEDOM to make the world a better place.

vidarh 14y ago
We tried the plugin model back in the 90's. It was uniformly rejected by users and developers alike. Flash was pretty much the only plugin that managed to get wide enough adoption. And flash is going the way of the dodo because innovation couldn't happen at top speed, because it was limited by a gatekeeper that insisted on keeping it closed. The lacklustre support for Silverlight was a demonstration of how badly we were burned by flash. While it's taking a long time to catch up, we're now free to expand the capabilities without being in a situation where a single party can hold everyone for ransom by refusing to support specific browsers or OS's. There are many negatives to having HTML5/CSS/Javascript as the foundation, but they are dwarfed by the problems of the alternatives we've had to deal with.
- goggles99 14y ago
  First off, you are describing a plugin, I am not saying that the Flash plugin was not without it's problems. Only that it could do more than HTML5 can do today 8 years ago AND had almost universal penetration. Stepping back is my problem with standards and HTML5. I am not saying that Flash ever was the answer. I am merely using it as an example that proves that standards will always hold back innovation, and I think that an open plugin standard could yield the best of both worlds. We tried the plugin model back in the 90's. It was uniformly rejected by users and developers alike. This is just wrong. It was on 98% of desktops and there were over 1 million Flash developers. Mobile is what really hurt flash (actually IOS's rejection of it) flash is going the way of the dodo because innovation couldn't happen at top speed, because it was limited by a gatekeeper that insisted on keeping it closed It still managed to stay FAR in front of other web technologies which stood nearly at a standstill for over a decade. Closed is not what I am suggesting anyway. Sure someone can develop an plugin that is closed, but the plugin architecture itself will be open and adopted by all browsers who want to compete. The lacklustre support for Silverlight was a demonstration of how badly we were burned by flash. I disagree, I think that Microsoft's stagnation and terrible management of 95% browser share is what doomed any web UI tooling to come out of Redmond. Internet Explore was so riddled with bugs, so vulnerable to virii/malware and so stagnant that it became a stench in the mind of nearly every web developer. This was the biggest mistake IMO that Microsoft has EVER made. They could have pushed innovation and owned the search engine market at the same time. They will never get it back from Google now. While it's taking a long time to catch up, we're now free to expand the capabilities without being in a situation where a single party can hold everyone for ransom by refusing to support specific browsers or OS's. Having a standard for plugins in the browser would not allow this situation to happen. A lot has changed in the last 12 years. Sure Macromedia was the only one who made a viable plugin to fill up the Internet Explorer window with, but that would not be the case today. We would see open source and competing products popping up everywhere - Just like the JavaScript/CSS/HTML5 frameworks we are seeing pop up every month. These frameworks try to innovate past the limitations and cumbersome methods that the standards constrain us to. We would be a lot better off if there was an open and secure plugin architecture with access to a VM, Drawing and DOM API (Perhaps the HTML5/CSS/JavaScript implementation would even run on top of this API).

vidarh 14y ago

We tried the plugin model back in the 90's. It was uniformly rejected by users and developers alike. Flash was pretty much the only plugin that managed to get wide enough adoption. And flash is going the way of the dodo because innovation couldn't happen at top speed, because it was limited by a gatekeeper that insisted on keeping it closed. The lacklustre support for Silverlight was a demonstration of how badly we were burned by flash. While it's taking a long time to catch up, we're now free to expand the capabilities without being in a situation where a single party can hold everyone for ransom by refusing to support specific browsers or OS's. There are many negatives to having HTML5/CSS/Javascript as the foundation, but they are dwarfed by the problems of the alternatives we've had to deal with.

goggles99 14y ago
First off, you are describing a plugin, I am not saying that the Flash plugin was not without it's problems. Only that it could do more than HTML5 can do today 8 years ago AND had almost universal penetration. Stepping back is my problem with standards and HTML5. I am not saying that Flash ever was the answer. I am merely using it as an example that proves that standards will always hold back innovation, and I think that an open plugin standard could yield the best of both worlds. We tried the plugin model back in the 90's. It was uniformly rejected by users and developers alike. This is just wrong. It was on 98% of desktops and there were over 1 million Flash developers. Mobile is what really hurt flash (actually IOS's rejection of it) flash is going the way of the dodo because innovation couldn't happen at top speed, because it was limited by a gatekeeper that insisted on keeping it closed It still managed to stay FAR in front of other web technologies which stood nearly at a standstill for over a decade. Closed is not what I am suggesting anyway. Sure someone can develop an plugin that is closed, but the plugin architecture itself will be open and adopted by all browsers who want to compete. The lacklustre support for Silverlight was a demonstration of how badly we were burned by flash. I disagree, I think that Microsoft's stagnation and terrible management of 95% browser share is what doomed any web UI tooling to come out of Redmond. Internet Explore was so riddled with bugs, so vulnerable to virii/malware and so stagnant that it became a stench in the mind of nearly every web developer. This was the biggest mistake IMO that Microsoft has EVER made. They could have pushed innovation and owned the search engine market at the same time. They will never get it back from Google now. While it's taking a long time to catch up, we're now free to expand the capabilities without being in a situation where a single party can hold everyone for ransom by refusing to support specific browsers or OS's. Having a standard for plugins in the browser would not allow this situation to happen. A lot has changed in the last 12 years. Sure Macromedia was the only one who made a viable plugin to fill up the Internet Explorer window with, but that would not be the case today. We would see open source and competing products popping up everywhere - Just like the JavaScript/CSS/HTML5 frameworks we are seeing pop up every month. These frameworks try to innovate past the limitations and cumbersome methods that the standards constrain us to. We would be a lot better off if there was an open and secure plugin architecture with access to a VM, Drawing and DOM API (Perhaps the HTML5/CSS/JavaScript implementation would even run on top of this API).