

Why I don't want Flash to die (and you shouldn't either) - waxpraxis
http://www.waxpraxis.org/blog/2010/04/little-boxes-in-the-browser/

======
RyanMcGreal
The author makes a compelling case for Flash as a vector of innovation, but he
really misses the case _against_ Flash. I haven't seen any critiques of Flash
based around the idea that it's "conformist". Rather, the critiques focus on
one or more of the following issues:

* It breaks web standards like persistent URLs and the back button (granted, there are some workarounds) and eschews native UI elements.

* It is inaccessible to visually impaired users.

* It is built on closed, proprietary technology, which raises both principled and pragmatic concerns (one pragmatic concern is the poor security framework, which might be ameliorated by more eyeballs on the source code).

* It tends to emphasize superfluous visuals over meaningful content (this isn't a requirement of Flash but it's a common result arising from Flash's dominant motifs).

And finally, a posterior observation:

* An awful lot of Flash applications just suck.

~~~
warfangle
Very succinct. Concur completely. Flash has its place (video, games; both of
which HTML5 are catching quickly up to). Its place isn't in making an entire,
un-navigable, un-deep-linkable, animation-heavy site that takes me ten minutes
to figure out how to use.

One of the comments on there said, "but check out thewfa! You can't make THOSE
websites in html5!"

And my immediate, lizard brain response was: "Why would I want to? I bet their
bounce rates are through the roof, and their return traffic approaches nil."

~~~
waxpraxis
Maybe YOUR lizard brain, but we ALL have to remember - we're geeks. One of my
son's favorite sites is <http://www.pigeonpresents.com/> (don't bother looking
at the source if you prefer your sanity). It's a simple site for kids, but
doing many of the things the site does with HTML5,etc would be quite painful
if they were possible at all.

------
jeff18
It's not about "wanting Flash to die". It's about improving web browsers so
Flash is not necessary.

~~~
waxpraxis
Ah, but necessary is the key word there. Very little that Flash is used for is
necessary, it's almost always about entertainment. HTML 5 is well suited to
overtake some of the reasons developers have to use Flash - inline video
players and many Flex apps.

The HTML 5 technology stack is not well positioned to do everything Flash can
do though - and I pointed out three key places where that's absolutely the
case.

The biggest point though is that HTML creeps slowly forward through a
standards process that is laborious at best. Flash, being a de-facto standard
controlled by one company doesn't have to wait - it can push and prod forward
and let developers explore new ideas and create new experiences. Even if you
don't care for Flash, you should appreciate what it does for pushing the web
forward. Sure there are missteps - I think Flash ads are awful too, but the
work and because of that HTML5 and canvas will be used to build just as
annoying ads in the future.

~~~
daleharvey
html creeps forward exactly because of people using sub standard workarounds
like flash, and those times are changing, anyone following what is happening
on the web can see that real web development is starting to move at an
extraordinary pace.

the standards committee dont "design" the internet, by definition to become a
specification someone needs to have implemented it, browser vendors are free
to implement cool new features as fast as they want, w3c is just a forum for
agreement on those new features.

if we were waiting on rubber stamping from the w3c, we wouldnt even be using
ajax right now.

~~~
waxpraxis
Right - but when did XmlHTTPRequest first rear it's head? 1999. When did AJAX
actually take off? 2005.

Six years.

During the same time Flash went from a no scripting (well it was essentially
programming via madlibs with Flash 4) to ActionScript 3 (Flex 2, the first
place AS3 was used, was in early beta at the time I believe).

New versions of the Flash Player only take a few months to hit 90%+
penetration rates.

~~~
daleharvey
yes but "noone supports new web standards" is a self fulfilling prophecy, we
all know users dont know or care about what is happening under the hood, they
arent going to push for ie to support canvas.

as web developers we need to be pushing canvas and font-face and webgl etc and
stop running back to propietary plugins every time a font kinda looks not
exactly the same on every other machine as mine.

Its pretty unarguable that open standards are fundamentally better than
proprietary formats, a single company owning the format the web runs on would
be disastrous, instead of opening this gap to push flash into, I think energy
is better spent pressuring those involved to help push web standards to a
point where flash is not needed, if every website didnt support ie6 tomorrow,
next week ie6 would not exist, obviously that is a contrived situation but the
fact is its us web developers that need to make sacrifices to make things work
better on the users behalf, they cant and shouldnt be expected to do it
themselves.

~~~
waxpraxis
Sure - but it's a constantly running cycle, people seem to forget that. HTML 5
will get adopted given enough time - but by that point Flash will have moved
on and will do more and do it better. Then HTML will catch up again... etc.

You can push HTML 5 and canvas all you'd like - but from a pure business
standpoint if I can reach 98% of my audience with Flash, but only 40% with
HTML5/Canvas I'd be an idiot to not choose Flash.

It will be WONDERFUL when I can use canvas to draw realtime graphs and know it
will reach 98% of my users. That day is not today and it won't be for some
time to come. Now, that being said I and doing _exactly_ that task with canvas
for a project - but it's as a backup of the Flash version since the client
expects a sizable iPad/iPhone audience.

~~~
daleharvey
people also seem to forget that flash is only "better" for some small
definitions of better, there is a reason people hate it and most of them arent
political.

your "from a pure business standpoint" is exactly what I was referring to,
people are far too quickly jumping to quick and ugly fixes like flash that do
nothing to help fix the core problems of why web standards are limiting. It
takes a lot of "idiots" to push canvas and friends into widespread adoption, I
am glad to see people like github taking the initiative.

~~~
waxpraxis
What do you mean by "small definitions of better"? Can you do a cartoon with
synchronized sound with HTML5? Better is a matter of "does it work for enough
of your audience that it makes sense to build it".

If you know your audience and can push the technology, by all means go for it!
GitHub has exactly that audience. They aren't idiots for going with canvas -
for them it's a savvy move. But the Flash option is still there for a reason
too.

~~~
daleharvey
my point was similiar to you last one, while html is catching up with video /
audio / animation, flash is still miles behind html in terms of a lot of basic
features, accessibility, adoption, easy of introspection, reliability,
performance, I am wary of "html is catching up with flash" arguments because
as you said its all situational.

~~~
waxpraxis
Ah certainly. They are all tools - you use the correct tool for the situation.
For entertainment purposes I would want to make sure Flash was in my tool
belt.

------
rimantas

      To put that in perspective, right now, somewhere around 60%
      of the browsers in the hands of users aren’t capable of
      rendering the canvas tag. 
    

That's unfortunate choice of words. _A lot_ of browsers that users actually
have _in hands_ —those on iPads, iPhones, iPods Touch are indeed better off
with canvas, not Flash. I know there is a promise to have Flash on mobiles
anytime soon, but not on Apple's devices, and those make up for a huge part of
mobile browsing.

~~~
josefresco
Even 100% of a small number is still ..a small number.

------
kaddar
I want flash to die; I just don't want closed platform policies to kill it.

~~~
betageek
This whole Flash murder/death/kill attitude is boring me to tears - I don't
think any Flash developer would disagree that HTML 5 will (eventually) replace
the more basic things that Flash does. Advanced multimedia will still use
Flash. Ads will use whatever is most intrusive until the end of time so use
whatever tools you have at your disposal to block them.

~~~
albertzeyer
Also in the areas where HTML5 is not a good replacement, I would still like to
see an open alternative over Flash. A closed alternative is just no solution
(for me), that's why I also want to see it dying. Once its dead, there will be
replacements for it (if there is need for it).

~~~
waxpraxis
How more open do you want it? You are free to make your own player against the
open specification.

Fully open isn't the answer for everything. Flash is the most widely
distributed piece of software ever - it got that way by NOT being forked and
offering what HTML didn't both in terms of consistency and features.

------
there
flash will eventually go the way of java applets. modern browsers will be able
to do 99% of what you need to do and for that remaining 1%, you'll have this
clunky web browser plugin that you probably have disabled by default for
security reasons, that you'll decide not to turn on to view the particular
website and just hit the back button or let the blue square icon sit there.

browsers can now natively play video, play audio, find your location, store
offline data, and do direct socket operations. i can't imagine a webcam api
being too far off, enabling a flash-free chatroulette (that's all we really
care about anyway, amirite?)

~~~
waxpraxis
Some browsers can do all of those things - but you've still only scratched the
surface of what Flash can do TODAY with 98% penetration. As for webcam
support, some people feel that HTML 5 as a spec will be fully out there and
usable by 2022. I wonder when enough browser makers will start on their
PROPRIETARY webcam interfaces?

Do you think Flash will stand still in that time? Suddenly jump from 98% to
0%?

~~~
there
it will "stand" just as java applets "stand" today. it will still be
supported, but it will be seen as a clunky alternative to open technologies
that are supported on a wider variety of devices, many of which won't have
flash support for any number of reasons.

i say this as a user with three major devices (computer, phone, and tablet)
that have no flash support, and am happy to see the proliferation of more open
technologies and the doing away with of proprietary, insecure, buggy crutches
like flash.

~~~
jasonlotito
Which Linux tablet do you have? I was tempted by the iPad, but if there is a
good Linux one, you got me. Also, does it sync with, what I assume is, your
Android?

~~~
there
none, i have an openbsd laptop, an android phone, and an apple ipad.

~~~
jasonlotito
Oh, so you do prefer proprietary over open. Gotcha.

------
buster
I think what the biggest problem is with HTML5 nowadays, is that even with
HTML5/CSS3/JS every browser supports other parts of the standards and even if
there are common elements they can behave differently. Everyone ever written a
complex webpage for IE/FF/Safari on Windows and Mac will know what i mean:
It's a nightmare. Flash offers a common API for all browsers and operating
Systems and even more features then HTML5/CSS3 deliver with a feature rich
platform for development.

Don't understand me wrong, i actually wish Flash to die. But i'd rather like
it dead when programming for different browsers becomes less of a pain.
Internet standards need to evolve faster (how long did it take for HTML5?) and
browsers need to be more standard compliant/support a common feature set.
Also, as a sidenote, i wouldn't write websites in Flash, but i can see some
actual benefits for the developer.

------
emehrkay
I've said it before; there needs to be an flash-like IDE for html canvas (and
whatever Microsoft uses) that outputs html, css, and javascript (maybe its own
library or it would use something like mootools or yui).

This IDE could start off as a clone of earlier flash versions where you just
manipulate shapes over time(<http://dev.w3.org/html5/canvas-
api/canvas-2d-api.html#images>) and of course you could do more useful stuff
using common html elements and incorporating audio/video. Once more features
are added to the html spec, the application's functionality could grow.

I thought about attempting to start this up as a web-based app, but I have to
familiarize myself a bit more with canvas, canvas shapes, and animation.

~~~
emehrkay
Wait a second

<http://glimr.rubyforge.org/cake/canvas.html#CatmullRom>

------
irrelative
The author of this hits on a really important topic in my opinion: that for
all of the talk about adhering to the standards, in every other field of
engineering adhering to the standards it the absolute bare minimum to have a
product.

Imagine if you made cars and you didn't conform to the safety standard?
Obviously that wouldn't work and you'd be shut down. However, a lot of web
standards zealots seem to imply that meeting the standard is a great goal to
achieve. There needs to be a bunch more innovation in all browsers, even just
as tech demos or features for the vendor's home page so that other browsers
can adopt the ideas.

Basically I think the author is spot on, but I wish it didn't have to be done
through Flash.

------
gte910h
Does anyone else think once 75% of what flash does is supported by canvas,
HTML5, etc, Adobe will just make it a compilation target for the Flash
toolchain?

I mean: Wouldn't that be great?

~~~
mclin
But realistically how long will it take for canvas and HTML 5 to catch up with
similar market penetration? 10 years? Certainly not less than 5.

~~~
not_an_alien
It took them what, 10 years to _start proposing_ what Flash has done in 5.

And considering... * The plans for the standard to be completed will still
take around 10 years * Flash can move at a much faster pace in development *
Flash penetration gets to 90% in less than one year * Browser penetration
moves very slowly - 8 years after release, MSIE 6 is still at 22%

...do you really think things will improve that much in 5 years?

I can't wait for 5 years to pass by. When Flash (and Silverlight) are even
more improved, when they're still evolving, when Flash is widely used in
mobile devices (other than the ones built by one rotten Apple), when HTML5 is
still a mess for development, when cross-browser HTML support is still wild
west, and when HTML5 is still unrealistic for Real-World development due to
lack of penetration... that's when reality will start hitting people in the
face.

But hey, maybe another 5 years later? Who knows.

------
jessriedel
What ever happened with that company with the proprietary video codecs that
Google bought? There were rumors that Google was going to adapt it and release
it as a better open standard than HTML5

~~~
zokier
Rumors are that Google is going to release VP8 as fully free codec to resolve
<video>-tag codec wars. It supposedly should be comparable to h264 in image
quality. But Flash is much more than just video.

~~~
weixiyen
> But Flash is much more than just video.

But video is what makes Flash considered 'necessary' for most consumers. The
two are almost synonymous so if Google goes through with it, it will be the
beginning of the end for Flash.

~~~
waxpraxis
Ah, but why then was Flash at the same kind of penetration #s prior to Flash
supporting video (Flash 6)? Also, as I mentioned in my post not all video is
meant to be in a little rectangle on the page.

~~~
weixiyen
> but why then was Flash at the same kind of penetration #s prior to Flash
> supporting video (Flash 6)?

Back then, it was animation / interaction. Flash took advantage of a lack of
standards across browsers as people were afraid to use javascript extensively.
That time has passed.

Right now, Flash lives because of video. The animation necessity has mostly
been replaced.

Assuming Google releases VP8, then your only argument left is that either:

1) Flash does video better (by a little)

2) Flash will find the next big thing to keep it alive.

I do not find (1) a compelling argument to use Flash for video on most sites.
In fact, the irony is that Flash may be kept alive for backwards browser
compatibility.

Until I know what (2) is - concrete examples please - I'm not willing to put
any confidence just b/c Flash prevailed in the past. It is too small a sample
size to put so much confidence in.

*formatting

------
cosmicray
If Adobe wanted to advance the Flash 'standard', they should put the specs and
standard in the public space. They do not have to open source their
implementation, but the bytecodes and file formats should be submitted to a
standards body.

~~~
waxpraxis
The specs are public and unencumbered: <http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/>

What would submitting to a standards body give them? If they are to continue
moving Flash forward with new versions every 18-20mo they can't wait for a
standards body.

------
JMiao
he obviously doesn't own a mac.

------
ableal
(reply in comments by the author:)

 _Then don’t install flash!_

That is the degree of freedom that I appreciate. Not so much Flash that
bank/shop/gov. sites expect anyone to have it.

And not so little that all the, er, uninteresting-to-me stuff now in Flash is
rendered in unavoidable HTML5 standards. (Note to self: save a copy of an
ancient browser.)

~~~
jrockway
Uh, or just program the modern browser to work the way you like. I don't whine
about jpeg or gif or png ads, even though my browser supports them just fine.
I simply have my browser not show them to me.

~~~
ableal
Thanks, I know how to do that too. Actually I do a lot of reading on a browser
with javascript and images off (Konqueror has a convenient 'load images'
button, but CSS still sneaks in an occasional annoyance).

Firefox without Flash does OK for me now, for the rest of the stuff that needs
javascript and images. I doubt it will be possible to tune it properly (short
of hosts file munging) if all Flash migrates to HTML5.

And of course it's a bit unwieldy to keep multiple browsers around - Konqueror
3.x also shows me a convenient 'open link in Firefox' option, but that's it.
And I don't think this kind of fiddly options will be exactly first priority.

We'll see in a couple of years, I guess.

P.S.

The 'canvas' animation in the page linked here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1252899> pegs one core of my Linux
machine with Firefox 3.5.

I just tested, and it does the same with image loading turned off. Must also
turn off javascript to make it stop (duh, must be a js busy-wait doing it).

(I seem to recall a line about 'depending on the kindness of strangers', not
really an enviable situation.)

~~~
waxpraxis
This is going to be a very interesting debate moving forward. Flash has shown
what happens if you let all elements of a page have the same rights to
resources - and Adobe is working on ways of dealing with the issue.

Now HTML5 is going to have to deal with the problem and they we'll have to
wait until browsers make their own implementation of a solution that will
probably be similar to Adobe's eventual solution.

~~~
ableal
Yes, good point. Probably by this time next year the top story here will be
talking about the problem. Ah, well. I'm getting off lightly - as someone put
it, Cassandra didn't get half the kicks she deserved ...

