5 ms·

Adobe on "HTML5"

37 points by radley 17y ago

johnnybgoode 17y ago
That's some great spin there. The only good argument they have is that HTML5 will take a while. Compared to HTML5, Flash isn't so much better that it's worth sacrificing openness to use it. We'll have libraries that take care of the cross-browser differences. Sure, there will be problems along the way, but it'll be worth it to kill Flash.
- snprbob86 17y ago
  I think the fundamental problem here is that we, as true hackers, place too much emphases on the importance of openness. I'd argue that, for the average developer, strong design tools and the promise of cross-browser consistency is well worth sacrificing openness.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    I see what you're saying, but I wasn't coming at it from a Stallmanesque openness-for-openness's-sake angle. Openness is also important as a guarantee, particularly in this case. For example, and this might sound like something RMS would say, we should be able to display Web content on some new device, without depending on Adobe to develop and maintain support for a version of Flash Player for that device. Why should the "open web" depend on Adobe or any one company to do something you need?
    - snprbob86 17y ago
      I totally appreciate the value of "open", but pragmatically, it simply doesn't matter. Every modern PC or Mac has Flash. Developers and, more importantly, "webmasters" (implying lack of technical skill) can rely on it being there. OK, so the iPhone doesn't have Flash. How many web pages are broken really? Much fewer than you'd think. But even when broken pages affect the average user, they don't think "Damn you Adobe!" nor do they say "The people who run this site are stupid!" and they certainly don't blame Apple who makes this device they love so much. Believe it or not, the average user immediately assumes they personally did something wrong or are completely unsensitive to the problem. "Hmmm, I guess this page doesn't work on my phone... I'll show you later." Openness solves engineering problems. Users don't understand engineering problems. More over, openness solves FUTURE engineering problems. Most people aren't sensitive to problems affecting them tomorrow, much less problems affecting the greater web community 5 years from now.
      - johnnybgoode 17y ago
        OK, but wouldn't it be better if the pages just worked for the user? That seems more important than being able to escape the blame. As you said, openness solves future engineering problems. I think that matters pragmatically.
        icefox 17y ago
        It would be even better if when viewing a page that is only a flash object Safari on the iphone would have some sort of message saying that Flash is not supported on the iPhone. Of course that is advertising for flash...
      - snprbob86 17y ago
        Wow. Apparently this comment was so bad that my other comment got down voted for it... All I was trying to say that is that the average person is not sensitive to the same problems as "us". Flash isn't going to die because too many people just don't care about what we see as wrong with it. On a side note: Personally, I'd rather see Flash go open than die. I value competition.
      - skwiddor 17y ago
        > Every modern PC or Mac has Flash Mine don't, and not through (my) choice. And neither do either of my phone handsets (Freerunner, HTC Dream). Flash is a pain in my arse.
- rimantas 17y ago
  "some great spin" is being put too mildly. Looks like they don't know what HTML5 is nor the state of its support in current browsers: pretty much all (but IE, of course) already have some support for it. Not sure how that makes minority of browsers, not to mention, that browsers on the new smartphones which are worth something are Webkit based—and that means support for HTML5. Apple specifically advertises HTML5 and CSS3 on its Safari webpage ( http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html ). I completely fail to see how the release of iPhone "helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support". If it did help something this is to realize that we can do just fine without Flash. So no, you don't need to wait ten years before HTML5 arrives, it is already on your doorstep (have you seen Google Wave?). There will be no wait, so "during that wait, Flash becomes more and more powerful" doesn't come to fruition. Adobe still cannot make Flash to run without hogging resources on anything but Windows, do they think I will buy this "more powerful" crap? I don't think that HTML5 will kill Flash though, but if it forces Flash out of the places there it does not belong (full flash sites, flash navigation, etc.) Web will be a better place and I will be a lot happier.
  - ROFISH 17y ago
    Part of the anti-HTML5 crowd is more about simplicity and ease of tools. While you and I may understand HTML5 and it's underlying technologies (ECMA4, CSS3), it's confusing to developers who don't understand the reasoning behind certain features. Like the CSS vs. Tables argument, Flash seems easier to do glitzy effects, and have it supported by all browsers. That said, I'm all for HTML5. Whenever YouTube officially supports the video tag, I'll me more than happy to uncheck that "Enable Plugins" on my browser preferences.
    - tfinniga 17y ago
      In case you haven't seen it, it looks like they're interested: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5
      - llimllib 17y ago
        Important to remember that where Microsoft's strategy is to compete with flash via silverlight, Google's was just to build a new browser and create a better HTML by hiring all the people important in the process and throw its weight behind them. So, yes, youtube is interested in HTML5 video, for the same reason google is interested in Chrome.
enomar 17y ago
I agree that it might be a while before the standard is final. And it will be even longer until all the non-HTML5 browsers are gone. But a decade? C'mon. All 5 major browsers should have a released browser with at least a few HTML 5 capabilities by the end of the year. If your audience is targeted to newer browsers or if you're using a framework that can degrade gracefully, it shouldn't be long until you can start using this stuff on real sites. Some pretty popular sites (gmail) are already using this stuff.
ATB 17y ago
It's interesting to see PR in action, especially as Proggit, HN, and several popular blogs have been sounding the HTML5-induced death knell for Flash in the last week or so. Translating the double-speak is actually good fun in this case. With all due respect to Jon Gruber, here is the PR-to-Human translation of this link: The current WhatWG proposals called "HTML 5" have been stirring up a lot of polarizing speech lately Positive attention to new technologies is only beneficial if Adobe has a clear monetization strategy for them. So we will introduce a controversy and try our best to make it "polarizing." It's hard for Adobe to have an official opinion But unofficially, Adobe will do everything possible to undermine the excitement over HTML5 and torpedo it at all cost. whatever this consortium of minority browser vendors chooses to do MINORITY. Get it? Unsupported! Unofficial! What happens if the minority goes away? Don't buy Tucker. Buy GM. seeing what the final agreement turns out to be, and how it is eventually manifested in the world, both are prerequisites for practical tool-making Given that we are a tool vendor, this is the only interesting part. And since we largely control the tool market for our tech, this is a major threat to us. Still, I'm glad that an analyst asked a question about it at the quarterly financial call. Here's what Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen had to say What a threatened tool vendor CEO has to say is what you should use to form your opinion about a technology and its future viability. I think the challenge for HTLM 5 will continue to be how do you get a consistent display of HTML 5 across browsers The biggest challenge for HTML5 will be the constant undermining from companies that see their current tool strategy and quasi-monopoly threatened, such as us. And when you think about when the rollout plans that are currently being talked about, they feel like it might be a decade before HTML 5 sees standardization across the number of browsers that are going to be out there. If we keep repeating the fear of how long it might take to implement again and again, it will take even longer. Your hesitation equals cold hard cash for us. we still think that actually the fragmentation of browsers makes Flash even more important rather than less important When asked about a potential competitor, I always mention how its rise will make our product more important. Because that's what the board pays me to do. Adobe's about communicating your ideas -- publishing to various channels -- not just about Flash. Dreamweaver, ColdFusion and the imaging tools all benefit from an increase in HTML. Hey guys, remember ColdFusion? ... Guys? Adobe profits from easing communication in general Positive communication about Adobe products. And sowing FUD about competitors. But since Slashdot posters ran the term 'FUD' into the ground ten years ago, you can't use it anymore without being derided. SCORE! Flash is a strong bet for emerging platforms I'm high as a kite. I'm increasingly uncomfortable with calling the WhatWG proposals "HTML 5" though Giving something that might become a standard the appearance of legitimacy is dangerous to our business model. Open standards are the enemy of our proprietary tools. What counts is not a press release, but a realworld deliverable What is not deliverable, for instance, is Flash on iPhone and possibly many other portable devices, which appear to be the biggest growth market/land rush of the next decade. Allowing an open competitor like HTML5 to dominate that market would be fatal for us. Shantanu's last point in there really resonates with me Please give me a raise. this whole "HTML5" campaign will likely benefit Flash, because few remain who oppose the idea that "experience matters" Our experience in making cold hard cash from selling Flash tools matters the most. Using "scare quotes" will help de-legitimize HTML5. Things are quite a bit different than five years ago. We now have a virtual monopoly on serving casual video on the web. We will fight anything that threatens us. iPhone helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support The new QuickTime X plays Flash videos natively. We might be screwed. the "HTML5" publicity helps marginalize those few who still argue that images, animation, audio/video and rich interactivity have no place on the web HTML5 uses open standards to play those file formats natively, which severely undercuts our tool/server profits. Flash will be able to deliver on those heightened expectations, regardless of what each separate browser engine does. Fuck you, WHATWG, Chrome, Mozilla, Safari.
pj 17y ago
His claim that it'll be 10 years until HTML5 works is absurd. Adobe makes some of the worst software in the software industry. Great marketers though.
- joezydeco 17y ago
  After working with Flash Lite for way too long, I gotta agree. I'm still convinced it's all about <video>. All this clamoring for Flash on iPhone, Flash on Android, Flash on GE Ovens etc is all about people getting their video (cough cough PORN) on their handsets. Give them H.264 and a <video>-tag enabled browser, throw in a little JQuery for animating menus and eye candy, and we'll leave Flash in the dust for good. Javascript is the new bytecode.
bonaldi 17y ago
"This whole "HTML5" campaign will likely benefit Flash, because few remain who oppose the idea that "experience matters" Sadly for him, many people who back the idea that "experience matters" are also against Flash, in all its nasty, proprietary, CPU-killing ways. It has taken a long time, but Adobe's chickens are finally coming home to roost. Profits are way down this year, because customers are ignoring CS4, and in a recent conference call they admitted they've had to begin hiring R&D staff again, which must really stick in the craw of the marketers who took over. It's amazing how often people forget the old "be nice on the way up the ladder" maxim. But then you get to enjoy the schadenfreude of watching them come down.
benreesman 17y ago
holding my finger in the dyke is hard, let's go shopping!
Ennis 17y ago
"HTML5" publicity helps marginalize those few who still argue that images, animation, audio/video and rich interactivity have no place on the web I don't understand what he means by this. I'm assuming he isn't articulating his thoughts well. For as long as I remember there were images, cheesy animations and background music on pages around the web - long before flash and shockwave. Does he mean that some people argue Flash is bad for the web because it's contents can't be indexed by search engines? Now that is a different story and a losing arguement since Adobe itself has admitted it's an issue.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  No, he's using a common PR tactic. HTML5 has been getting some good press, and he's scared about it hurting Flash. So he's highlighting what HTML5 and Flash have in common by essentially inventing a fictional common enemy[1], and using that to say, "Hey, if you like HTML5, you'll love Flash!" [1] I'm sure there are people who actually take the invented position, but it doesn't really matter here.
- jdowdell 17y ago
  [ Original poster here ] The stance that "images have no place on the Web" is the oldest of the lot, dating back to Netscape 2.0 days... it's hard to remember or even believe now, but people did rail against the IMG tag. Back in the late 90s there was much argumentation that "things shouldn't move on webpages". This has died down as people have realized how motion can help clarify interfaces (iPhone's intertial drag helped lots), but we're still not at the point of universal acceptance that animation helps increase the total number of people who find the message accessible. My point was that the arguments against richer interfaces have died down, as the browsers slowly advance to bring such abilities within reach. There will always be criticism of the leading edge, but Silverlight, iPhone, and "HTML5" have each helped convert camps away from the belief that only permissible medium is lengthy English text. (SEO has had the gosh-darnedest amount of misinfo spread about... search engines have reached inside SWF for years and years, as the old Slashdot example query of "'contrary evidence' filetype:swf" showed. Start by visualizing the terms on which people will likely seek your services... research the competition you have for the first ten Google hits on the term... then optimize your pages for those terms in the usual way, as recommended by the search engines' guidelines. The "every little bit of dynamic text" fascination is starting to bite Ajax now too, so I have hope it will soon go away. ;-) jd/adobe
makecheck 17y ago
For me it's not even about how the content is displayed (which is Adobe's concern), it's the user interface. HTML 5 could present everything in mostly the same way, but still be an improvement because the browser would be aware of it all. Problems that I see only in Flash: - Fixed-size text in a fixed-size box in the browser. - Text that can't be selected/copied/pasted. - Unnecessary customizations to video player interfaces. - "Navigation" that is completely unable to interact with the rest of my browser, e.g. can't figure out what URLs things go to, or how to go back. - Needing to go to Adobe's own web site to bring up Flash configuration panels to edit further redundancies like Flash's own cookie storage, etc.
bonaldi 17y ago
Hoo, the comments thread on this is still good. It's OK for Flash to suck, because sometimes other apps suck as well. the Flash plugin on Windows is far more efficient and performs massively better than in the same page on Macintosh. [jd sez: I haven't tested that, but it's reasonable -- 3D and video tools are often claimed to work better on Windows too.] http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/06/adobe_on_html5.html#comment-2005744 http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/06/adobe_on_html5.html#commen...

37 points by radley 17y ago

That's some great spin there. The only good argument they have is that HTML5 will take a while. Compared to HTML5, Flash isn't so much better that it's worth sacrificing openness to use it. We'll have libraries that take care of the cross-browser differences. Sure, there will be problems along the way, but it'll be worth it to kill Flash.

snprbob86 17y ago
I think the fundamental problem here is that we, as true hackers, place too much emphases on the importance of openness. I'd argue that, for the average developer, strong design tools and the promise of cross-browser consistency is well worth sacrificing openness.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  I see what you're saying, but I wasn't coming at it from a Stallmanesque openness-for-openness's-sake angle. Openness is also important as a guarantee, particularly in this case. For example, and this might sound like something RMS would say, we should be able to display Web content on some new device, without depending on Adobe to develop and maintain support for a version of Flash Player for that device. Why should the "open web" depend on Adobe or any one company to do something you need?
  - snprbob86 17y ago
    I totally appreciate the value of "open", but pragmatically, it simply doesn't matter. Every modern PC or Mac has Flash. Developers and, more importantly, "webmasters" (implying lack of technical skill) can rely on it being there. OK, so the iPhone doesn't have Flash. How many web pages are broken really? Much fewer than you'd think. But even when broken pages affect the average user, they don't think "Damn you Adobe!" nor do they say "The people who run this site are stupid!" and they certainly don't blame Apple who makes this device they love so much. Believe it or not, the average user immediately assumes they personally did something wrong or are completely unsensitive to the problem. "Hmmm, I guess this page doesn't work on my phone... I'll show you later." Openness solves engineering problems. Users don't understand engineering problems. More over, openness solves FUTURE engineering problems. Most people aren't sensitive to problems affecting them tomorrow, much less problems affecting the greater web community 5 years from now.
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      OK, but wouldn't it be better if the pages just worked for the user? That seems more important than being able to escape the blame. As you said, openness solves future engineering problems. I think that matters pragmatically.
      - icefox 17y ago
        It would be even better if when viewing a page that is only a flash object Safari on the iphone would have some sort of message saying that Flash is not supported on the iPhone. Of course that is advertising for flash...
    - snprbob86 17y ago
      Wow. Apparently this comment was so bad that my other comment got down voted for it... All I was trying to say that is that the average person is not sensitive to the same problems as "us". Flash isn't going to die because too many people just don't care about what we see as wrong with it. On a side note: Personally, I'd rather see Flash go open than die. I value competition.
    - skwiddor 17y ago
      > Every modern PC or Mac has Flash Mine don't, and not through (my) choice. And neither do either of my phone handsets (Freerunner, HTC Dream). Flash is a pain in my arse.
rimantas 17y ago
"some great spin" is being put too mildly. Looks like they don't know what HTML5 is nor the state of its support in current browsers: pretty much all (but IE, of course) already have some support for it. Not sure how that makes minority of browsers, not to mention, that browsers on the new smartphones which are worth something are Webkit based—and that means support for HTML5. Apple specifically advertises HTML5 and CSS3 on its Safari webpage ( http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html ). I completely fail to see how the release of iPhone "helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support". If it did help something this is to realize that we can do just fine without Flash. So no, you don't need to wait ten years before HTML5 arrives, it is already on your doorstep (have you seen Google Wave?). There will be no wait, so "during that wait, Flash becomes more and more powerful" doesn't come to fruition. Adobe still cannot make Flash to run without hogging resources on anything but Windows, do they think I will buy this "more powerful" crap? I don't think that HTML5 will kill Flash though, but if it forces Flash out of the places there it does not belong (full flash sites, flash navigation, etc.) Web will be a better place and I will be a lot happier.
- ROFISH 17y ago
  Part of the anti-HTML5 crowd is more about simplicity and ease of tools. While you and I may understand HTML5 and it's underlying technologies (ECMA4, CSS3), it's confusing to developers who don't understand the reasoning behind certain features. Like the CSS vs. Tables argument, Flash seems easier to do glitzy effects, and have it supported by all browsers. That said, I'm all for HTML5. Whenever YouTube officially supports the video tag, I'll me more than happy to uncheck that "Enable Plugins" on my browser preferences.
  - tfinniga 17y ago
    In case you haven't seen it, it looks like they're interested: http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5
    - llimllib 17y ago
      Important to remember that where Microsoft's strategy is to compete with flash via silverlight, Google's was just to build a new browser and create a better HTML by hiring all the people important in the process and throw its weight behind them. So, yes, youtube is interested in HTML5 video, for the same reason google is interested in Chrome.

enomar 17y ago

I agree that it might be a while before the standard is final. And it will be even longer until all the non-HTML5 browsers are gone. But a decade? C'mon. All 5 major browsers should have a released browser with at least a few HTML 5 capabilities by the end of the year. If your audience is targeted to newer browsers or if you're using a framework that can degrade gracefully, it shouldn't be long until you can start using this stuff on real sites. Some pretty popular sites (gmail) are already using this stuff.

ATB 17y ago

It's interesting to see PR in action, especially as Proggit, HN, and several popular blogs have been sounding the HTML5-induced death knell for Flash in the last week or so. Translating the double-speak is actually good fun in this case. With all due respect to Jon Gruber, here is the PR-to-Human translation of this link: The current WhatWG proposals called "HTML 5" have been stirring up a lot of polarizing speech lately Positive attention to new technologies is only beneficial if Adobe has a clear monetization strategy for them. So we will introduce a controversy and try our best to make it "polarizing." It's hard for Adobe to have an official opinion But unofficially, Adobe will do everything possible to undermine the excitement over HTML5 and torpedo it at all cost. whatever this consortium of minority browser vendors chooses to do MINORITY. Get it? Unsupported! Unofficial! What happens if the minority goes away? Don't buy Tucker. Buy GM. seeing what the final agreement turns out to be, and how it is eventually manifested in the world, both are prerequisites for practical tool-making Given that we are a tool vendor, this is the only interesting part. And since we largely control the tool market for our tech, this is a major threat to us. Still, I'm glad that an analyst asked a question about it at the quarterly financial call. Here's what Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen had to say What a threatened tool vendor CEO has to say is what you should use to form your opinion about a technology and its future viability. I think the challenge for HTLM 5 will continue to be how do you get a consistent display of HTML 5 across browsers The biggest challenge for HTML5 will be the constant undermining from companies that see their current tool strategy and quasi-monopoly threatened, such as us. And when you think about when the rollout plans that are currently being talked about, they feel like it might be a decade before HTML 5 sees standardization across the number of browsers that are going to be out there. If we keep repeating the fear of how long it might take to implement again and again, it will take even longer. Your hesitation equals cold hard cash for us. we still think that actually the fragmentation of browsers makes Flash even more important rather than less important When asked about a potential competitor, I always mention how its rise will make our product more important. Because that's what the board pays me to do. Adobe's about communicating your ideas -- publishing to various channels -- not just about Flash. Dreamweaver, ColdFusion and the imaging tools all benefit from an increase in HTML. Hey guys, remember ColdFusion? ... Guys? Adobe profits from easing communication in general Positive communication about Adobe products. And sowing FUD about competitors. But since Slashdot posters ran the term 'FUD' into the ground ten years ago, you can't use it anymore without being derided. SCORE! Flash is a strong bet for emerging platforms I'm high as a kite. I'm increasingly uncomfortable with calling the WhatWG proposals "HTML 5" though Giving something that might become a standard the appearance of legitimacy is dangerous to our business model. Open standards are the enemy of our proprietary tools. What counts is not a press release, but a realworld deliverable What is not deliverable, for instance, is Flash on iPhone and possibly many other portable devices, which appear to be the biggest growth market/land rush of the next decade. Allowing an open competitor like HTML5 to dominate that market would be fatal for us. Shantanu's last point in there really resonates with me Please give me a raise. this whole "HTML5" campaign will likely benefit Flash, because few remain who oppose the idea that "experience matters" Our experience in making cold hard cash from selling Flash tools matters the most. Using "scare quotes" will help de-legitimize HTML5. Things are quite a bit different than five years ago. We now have a virtual monopoly on serving casual video on the web. We will fight anything that threatens us. iPhone helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support The new QuickTime X plays Flash videos natively. We might be screwed. the "HTML5" publicity helps marginalize those few who still argue that images, animation, audio/video and rich interactivity have no place on the web HTML5 uses open standards to play those file formats natively, which severely undercuts our tool/server profits. Flash will be able to deliver on those heightened expectations, regardless of what each separate browser engine does. Fuck you, WHATWG, Chrome, Mozilla, Safari.

pj 17y ago

His claim that it'll be 10 years until HTML5 works is absurd. Adobe makes some of the worst software in the software industry. Great marketers though.

joezydeco 17y ago
After working with Flash Lite for way too long, I gotta agree. I'm still convinced it's all about <video>. All this clamoring for Flash on iPhone, Flash on Android, Flash on GE Ovens etc is all about people getting their video (cough cough PORN) on their handsets. Give them H.264 and a <video>-tag enabled browser, throw in a little JQuery for animating menus and eye candy, and we'll leave Flash in the dust for good. Javascript is the new bytecode.

bonaldi 17y ago

"This whole "HTML5" campaign will likely benefit Flash, because few remain who oppose the idea that "experience matters" Sadly for him, many people who back the idea that "experience matters" are also against Flash, in all its nasty, proprietary, CPU-killing ways. It has taken a long time, but Adobe's chickens are finally coming home to roost. Profits are way down this year, because customers are ignoring CS4, and in a recent conference call they admitted they've had to begin hiring R&D staff again, which must really stick in the craw of the marketers who took over. It's amazing how often people forget the old "be nice on the way up the ladder" maxim. But then you get to enjoy the schadenfreude of watching them come down.

benreesman 17y ago

holding my finger in the dyke is hard, let's go shopping!

Ennis 17y ago

"HTML5" publicity helps marginalize those few who still argue that images, animation, audio/video and rich interactivity have no place on the web I don't understand what he means by this. I'm assuming he isn't articulating his thoughts well. For as long as I remember there were images, cheesy animations and background music on pages around the web - long before flash and shockwave. Does he mean that some people argue Flash is bad for the web because it's contents can't be indexed by search engines? Now that is a different story and a losing arguement since Adobe itself has admitted it's an issue.

johnnybgoode 17y ago
No, he's using a common PR tactic. HTML5 has been getting some good press, and he's scared about it hurting Flash. So he's highlighting what HTML5 and Flash have in common by essentially inventing a fictional common enemy[1], and using that to say, "Hey, if you like HTML5, you'll love Flash!" [1] I'm sure there are people who actually take the invented position, but it doesn't really matter here.
jdowdell 17y ago
[ Original poster here ] The stance that "images have no place on the Web" is the oldest of the lot, dating back to Netscape 2.0 days... it's hard to remember or even believe now, but people did rail against the IMG tag. Back in the late 90s there was much argumentation that "things shouldn't move on webpages". This has died down as people have realized how motion can help clarify interfaces (iPhone's intertial drag helped lots), but we're still not at the point of universal acceptance that animation helps increase the total number of people who find the message accessible. My point was that the arguments against richer interfaces have died down, as the browsers slowly advance to bring such abilities within reach. There will always be criticism of the leading edge, but Silverlight, iPhone, and "HTML5" have each helped convert camps away from the belief that only permissible medium is lengthy English text. (SEO has had the gosh-darnedest amount of misinfo spread about... search engines have reached inside SWF for years and years, as the old Slashdot example query of "'contrary evidence' filetype:swf" showed. Start by visualizing the terms on which people will likely seek your services... research the competition you have for the first ten Google hits on the term... then optimize your pages for those terms in the usual way, as recommended by the search engines' guidelines. The "every little bit of dynamic text" fascination is starting to bite Ajax now too, so I have hope it will soon go away. ;-) jd/adobe

makecheck 17y ago

For me it's not even about how the content is displayed (which is Adobe's concern), it's the user interface. HTML 5 could present everything in mostly the same way, but still be an improvement because the browser would be aware of it all. Problems that I see only in Flash: - Fixed-size text in a fixed-size box in the browser. - Text that can't be selected/copied/pasted. - Unnecessary customizations to video player interfaces. - "Navigation" that is completely unable to interact with the rest of my browser, e.g. can't figure out what URLs things go to, or how to go back. - Needing to go to Adobe's own web site to bring up Flash configuration panels to edit further redundancies like Flash's own cookie storage, etc.

bonaldi 17y ago

Hoo, the comments thread on this is still good. It's OK for Flash to suck, because sometimes other apps suck as well. the Flash plugin on Windows is far more efficient and performs massively better than in the same page on Macintosh. [jd sez: I haven't tested that, but it's reasonable -- 3D and video tools are often claimed to work better on Windows too.] http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/06/adobe_on_html5.html#comment-2005744 http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/06/adobe_on_html5.html#commen...