Bosco (Brad Hutchings) - 16 September 2011 11:10 PM

In your haste to stir up the death cult, FalKirk and rattuk, you have failed to consider how Flash embedded on a website could indeed run under Metro. Let me spell that out for you.

Microsoft announced they weren’t supporting Flash on their tablets, not me or Ratty.

If you want to believe that some workaround is going to make Flash available, fine, enjoy your fantasy.

And again, why the hell are you - the champion of open - supporting the proprietary Flash standard? You should be the supporting the open source HTML5.

.

.

FalKirk, you just take what you think is the announcement, generalize, match up to iOS, and call that the outcome. It is not. There is tremendous nuance below the surface, but it requires that you actually understand the technologies.

Microsoft said that the Metro mode browser will not support plugins. That is far different from saying they are not supporting Flash on their tablets.

To your last question… Again, no nuance. Despite my repeated honest attempts to explain, you refuse to accept that I don’t hold a cookie cutter position. Let me try even once again. To me, “open” is not about who writes the standards or owns something. It is about accessibility and flexibility in the real world. There are 3+ million Flash developers. Most of these people come from a design background and perspective rather than a coding background and perspective. I come from a coding background and perspective, yet I think it is wonderful that a tool like Flash can make it quite inexpensive for designers to write, what in many cases is actually phenomenally good software. And I’m sorry, but HTML5 + CSS + JavaScript are no where near as accessible to ordinary people as Flash. They have a steep learning curve and severe performance disadvantages versus Flash with the kinds of things designers want to do, like animation, game physics, etc.

Although Flash is a comparatively inexpensive developer tool and proprietary, Adobe does publish its spec and actually provides direct support for development of many “open source” Flash tools which are freely available. Adobe incorporates and contributes to many truly open source endeavors, such as the Eclipse IDE. And they aren’t all awkward about it and at war with open source communities like Apple BFF Oracle is.

It speaks volumes about Apple fanatics that they’ve bought into this war against Flash and Adobe. You might as well have launched ICBMs at Mr. Rogers or Barney.

Ratty, explain to me why there are still more than 3 million active Flash developers if it’s dead. Explain to me how a dead technology was used to create the #1 game in Apple’s app store right now. Explain how that game could be subsequently deployed to PlayBook and Android, to Mac and Windows, to browsers that support the whole web, and eventually as native apps for both x86 and ARM variants of Windows 8 tablets. Explain to me why a developer would not want to leverage their investment to reach all these platforms with minimal incremental work over reaching just one.

Then you can explain why you guys have skin in what Microsoft does. The only thing I can think of is that you’re tired of the criticism about St. Steven’s battle to the death against Flash, and this is what finally justifies the battle. As if > 50% market share in the tablet space today counts for very little. There is more than a touch of insecurity in your position.

.

Bosco (Brad Hutchings) - 17 September 2011 12:08 AM

Microsoft said that the Metro mode browser will not support plugins. That is far different from saying they are not supporting Flash on their tablets.

Microsoft Hates Flash, Too, And For The Same Reasons As Apple ...

Windows 8’s Metro Browser Will Be Plug-In Free—Which Means No Flash

Microsoft Follows Apple, Bans Flash From Windows 8 Tablet Software

(Metro) won’t run Flash.

The reasons are the same reasons Apple has refused to support Flash on the Web browsers on the iPad and iPhone. As Hachamovich wrote:

Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.

Hmm. battery life, security, reliability and privacy. Sure sounds to me like they are not supporting Flash on their tablets.

And hey, what a surprise. They’re dumping Flash for the exact same reasons Apple did. Go figure.

.

Bosco (Brad Hutchings) - 17 September 2011 12:25 AM

Ratty, explain to me why there are still more than 3 million active Flash developers if it’s dead.

Trends, Brad, trends. Up until a month ago Nokia was still the largest phone maker in the world. So they’re going to be just fine, right? HP is still the largest PC maker in the world. So they’re going to be just fine, right? There were only 25 million tablets sold last year and over 400 million desktops. So desktop sales are going to be just fine, right? In 2008, Apple only had half the market cap of Microsoft. So Microsoft’s market cap is going to be just fine, right?

Again, if you want to believe that those 3 million Flash developers are going to do just hunky dory in the future, it’s your funeral.

The iPad doesn’t have Flash and it has a 95% satisfaction rating (70% “very satisfied”). Microsoft’s upcoming tablet doesn’t have Flash. The tablets that DO support Flash are being chewed up in the marketplace.

Flash is not as important as you think. Flash is going away. If you can’t see that, it’s your loss.

@rattyuk: Flash Builder 4.5 Standard (full) is $249.00. If you’re a designer who does not know C but has done some scripting, this is a far better value than Xcode for free, plus it spits out cross-platform outputs whereas Xcode does not. If you value your time at $10/hour, this will probably pay for itself with your first project. Well, so would Flash Builder 4.5 Premium.

Look, we’ll be having the same discussion about the impending death of Flash a year from now, when Flash/AIR titles dominate the top games and other category listings. Developers choose Flash because it makes sense to them for their projects and their customers and hedging their investments against a volatile landscape.

I just don’t see why many of you feel the need to be so hateful about a technology. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, as much as I despise iOS garbage, the most hate I can muster is for it to be relegated to a small niche. “Death” is just pretty extreme to root for.