

Ask HN: Should Gridspy avoid Flash? - gridspy

As you might know, Gridspy the a power monitoring solution that I am developing. Suffice to say it is totally awesome. Working dashboard here : http://your.gridspy.co.nz/powertech/<p>Right now, we use the jquery sparkines library : http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/ and some rendered PNGs to show data. The sparklines are JS and render to canvas. All good.<p>Enter the Google Visualisation library : http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery.html<p>Now some of these are totally awesome. One in particular grabs my attention: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/annotatedtimeline.html<p>However : this annotation requires flash. Do I avoid it for that reason? Should I just query the client to see if they have flash and selectively degrade to an alternative (such as http://danvk.org/dygraphs/)?<p>So, overall, how evil is Flash in your opinion?
======
icey
If it's significantly faster to do what you want in Flash, do it that way
first. Your users are almost certain to have it.

Most of the conversations of the evilness of flash are limited to the HN sort
of audience. I don't think that the internet audience at large really cares
about it all that much.

If the features end up being really useful and you decide you hate Flash, you
can revisit it and write it in something else later.

If the features end up not getting used, then you saved yourself a bunch of
time on a feature that didn't end up being a big deal.

------
gills
I recently opted to swap jqplot for google vis for some reporting
functionality. Losing the annotated timeline was painful, but I think, in the
end, workable (jqplot can link the zoom together on two charts so that one of
them is the thumbnail).

Flash was part of the reason I switched; I was not wholly comfortable with
[what I perceive as] the fragile and convoluted page load dependency between
google vis and jquery (perhaps you have a better way).

~~~
gridspy
jqplot looks great. Thanks for the suggestion!

------
gridspy
Hot :

Dashboard: <http://your.gridspy.co.nz/powertech/>

Jquery sparklines: <http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/>

Google visualisation:
[http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gall...](http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery.html)

Annotated timeline (the flash one):
[http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gall...](http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/annotatedtimeline.html)
<\-- Should I use this?

DyGraphs: <http://danvk.org/dygraphs>

------
colonelxc
I don't think flash is "evil", but as I often am browsing around on my iphone,
a nicely degrading site is a godsend. This seems like the type of site someone
might add to their home screen and check periodically.

