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I've noticed a strange habit in web journalism lately. If the author doesn't like something that's popular, they'll falsely claim it's on the verge of death and

by stevenh 12y ago

I've noticed a strange habit in web journalism lately. If the author doesn't like something that's popular, they'll falsely claim it's on the verge of death and that nobody has willingly associated with it for months or years. Flash and AIR are still flagship products at Adobe. These tools are actually updated more frequently than ever before, probably because developers using these platforms are reaching record numbers, and Adobe can see that in their Creative Cloud usage metrics. Their deliberate strategy of killing the plugin on mobile to pivot their focus into AIR must have paid off. Adobe's development process for Flash and AIR used to be a bit opaque, but they now release new public betas multiple times per month, listen to requests for changes, and disclose the projected development timeline for new features. I'm sorry if the spirit of the article resonated with people here who hate Flash, but it is utterly vapid clickbait. It's a tired exercise in kludging together derogatory illustrative phrases to paint the chosen target in a bad light, with nothing driving the negativity other than the author's wishful thinking. The author actually admits he has nothing to support his title when he states "this story isn't about how or why Flash is dying: It's about why we have to remember it" and proceeds to spend the next 13 paragraphs whining about how sites like The Wayback Machine haven't archived enough SWF files. The title (which the article does absolutely nothing to even attempt to support) implies an urgent and imminent threat to the existence of Flash, that perhaps major desktop browser vendors have unanimously agreed to ban the Flash plugin or that they decided to get rid of plugin support altogether. Of course, this is ridiculous, and as long as desktop browsers still support plugins, Flash is not going anywhere.

white-flame 12y ago
Out of all the Facebook, King.com, & other social/casual web games I've seen my family play, 100% of them have been Flash. I think in years past some have been Java, but I've not yet seen a HTML5 game in use on the big sites as played here. Since my family doesn't pay money into these games, their style involves playing broad coverage of games: They play each for a little bit until the life meter runs out, and often try new games. Again, 100% have been flash. There are also tools & frameworks like Starling for converting either AS3 code, Flash assets, or full SWF files to other non-Flash platforms. For instance, I wrote the sorting algorithm in as3isolib, and noticed that Ubisoft ported one of their games using it to iOS, using Starling. Flash is certainly alive and well.
- krilnon 12y ago
  > I wrote the sorting algorithm in as3isolib Oh neat. I don't recognize your username, but I submitted the first entry in the logo contest for that library in 2008, which ended up being fairly close to the final logo. > Flash is certainly alive and well. There's plenty of developer activity, but I'm pretty sure Adobe only has a life support team maintaining most things now. AS4 was cancelled, so Falcon was the last notable language change. Most of the AoT iOS/Android targeting stuff was completed years ago, so now AFAICT it's just being kept compatible with new releases. FP12 was supposed to be a huge jump, but now 12-17 (and the accompanying AIR APIs) have come and gone without pushing things forward meaningfully.
radley 12y ago
AIR?? Really? Can you provide any stats to support that? I'm not against AIR. On the contrary, I had high hopes that it would become the STANDARD for cross-platform desktop deployment. In a mobile-first world, desktop apps are lowest priority and last to be deployed to an ever shrinking base (ex. compare iOS quality to OSX). A single code base such as AIR could be critical for smaller apps for OSX / Windows / Chrome.
MBCook 12y ago
Outside of Flash games and one or two all flash websites (like HBO) what is it used for? Browsers can do HTML5 for YouTube and Safari can play Netflix without plugins. I run a flash blocker and I don't remember the last time I had to enable a pee I run a flash blocker and I don't remember the last time I had to enable Flash on a page. Facebook games (if I were to use that kind of thing) would be the one exception I can think of.
- Aoyagi 12y ago
  I prefer Flash for videos and well...everything that can just start playing, take up bandwidth and make noise. Because it's easier to block that than an HTML5 content (without any specialized plug-ins in proper browsers, too).

by stevenh 12y ago

white-flame 12y ago

Out of all the Facebook, King.com, & other social/casual web games I've seen my family play, 100% of them have been Flash. I think in years past some have been Java, but I've not yet seen a HTML5 game in use on the big sites as played here. Since my family doesn't pay money into these games, their style involves playing broad coverage of games: They play each for a little bit until the life meter runs out, and often try new games. Again, 100% have been flash. There are also tools & frameworks like Starling for converting either AS3 code, Flash assets, or full SWF files to other non-Flash platforms. For instance, I wrote the sorting algorithm in as3isolib, and noticed that Ubisoft ported one of their games using it to iOS, using Starling. Flash is certainly alive and well.

krilnon 12y ago
> I wrote the sorting algorithm in as3isolib Oh neat. I don't recognize your username, but I submitted the first entry in the logo contest for that library in 2008, which ended up being fairly close to the final logo. > Flash is certainly alive and well. There's plenty of developer activity, but I'm pretty sure Adobe only has a life support team maintaining most things now. AS4 was cancelled, so Falcon was the last notable language change. Most of the AoT iOS/Android targeting stuff was completed years ago, so now AFAICT it's just being kept compatible with new releases. FP12 was supposed to be a huge jump, but now 12-17 (and the accompanying AIR APIs) have come and gone without pushing things forward meaningfully.

radley 12y ago

AIR?? Really? Can you provide any stats to support that? I'm not against AIR. On the contrary, I had high hopes that it would become the STANDARD for cross-platform desktop deployment. In a mobile-first world, desktop apps are lowest priority and last to be deployed to an ever shrinking base (ex. compare iOS quality to OSX). A single code base such as AIR could be critical for smaller apps for OSX / Windows / Chrome.

MBCook 12y ago

Outside of Flash games and one or two all flash websites (like HBO) what is it used for? Browsers can do HTML5 for YouTube and Safari can play Netflix without plugins. I run a flash blocker and I don't remember the last time I had to enable a pee I run a flash blocker and I don't remember the last time I had to enable Flash on a page. Facebook games (if I were to use that kind of thing) would be the one exception I can think of.

Aoyagi 12y ago
I prefer Flash for videos and well...everything that can just start playing, take up bandwidth and make noise. Because it's easier to block that than an HTML5 content (without any specialized plug-ins in proper browsers, too).