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I feel like some kind of web luddite for saying this, but does anyone else actually like flash? yes, people abused it and most flash apps were crap, but now I'

by Jack000 13y ago

I feel like some kind of web luddite for saying this, but does anyone else actually like flash? yes, people abused it and most flash apps were crap, but now I'm seeing more and more of the same done in css animations/javascript. It's worse too, since most people just do something like jQuery.animate and update the dom every frame. I personally liked the actionscript 3 graphics api a lot more than javascript + canvas. I did work with it a lot so I could be biased.. The death of a closed platform like flash is good for the future of the web, but some of the hate is undeserved. Hopefully it will have a second life as a desktop app platform.

userbinator 13y ago
It's also easy to block Flash (I have it disabled by default), but not so easy to block JS or CSS animations selectively. Having done some decompilation/deobfuscation stuff I've worked with the Flash file format directly at the byte level, and it's really quite nice and efficient for its purpose - although you wouldn't see that from the direction Adobe's plugins have taken. IMHO it was good when it was still called Macromedia Shockwave Flash.
- Jack000 13y ago
  Adobe isn't even trying anymore. Last I checked they bundled a toolbar with the flash installer.. here's an app I wrote in the good ole days, about 20k loc: http://www.partkart.com http://www.partkart.com info: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-software/106198-partkam-free-crossplatform-2-5d-cam.html http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-software/106198-par... code: https://launchpad.net/partkam https://launchpad.net/partkam (yeah, launchpad. I have a habit of backing the wrong horse)
- girvo 13y ago
  Oh god. You've just reminded me of hacking the Nitto 1320 drag racing game: it was a "desktop" app that was actually a Flash exe. Decompiling it was a lot of fun, seeing Jeff build a completely hacked client and doing it myself... Fun times. I had a lot of time on my hands as a kid.

by Jack000 13y ago

userbinator 13y ago

It's also easy to block Flash (I have it disabled by default), but not so easy to block JS or CSS animations selectively. Having done some decompilation/deobfuscation stuff I've worked with the Flash file format directly at the byte level, and it's really quite nice and efficient for its purpose - although you wouldn't see that from the direction Adobe's plugins have taken. IMHO it was good when it was still called Macromedia Shockwave Flash.

Jack000 13y ago
Adobe isn't even trying anymore. Last I checked they bundled a toolbar with the flash installer.. here's an app I wrote in the good ole days, about 20k loc: http://www.partkart.com http://www.partkart.com info: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-software/106198-partkam-free-crossplatform-2-5d-cam.html http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-software/106198-par... code: https://launchpad.net/partkam https://launchpad.net/partkam (yeah, launchpad. I have a habit of backing the wrong horse)
girvo 13y ago
Oh god. You've just reminded me of hacking the Nitto 1320 drag racing game: it was a "desktop" app that was actually a Flash exe. Decompiling it was a lot of fun, seeing Jeff build a completely hacked client and doing it myself... Fun times. I had a lot of time on my hands as a kid.