Adobe: We Love Choice | Hacker News Reader

Adobe: We Love Choice

log.valhallaisland.com

11 pointsnexneo18 comments

>The $600 Flash authoring tool is the only way to produce Flash applications.

That statement is wrong. Anyone can create tools that can 'create' and/or 'run' swf files. Adobe itself provides Flex SDK cost free. It is an opensourced framework.

http://osflash.org/projects has a list of opensource tools available to create flash content.

I'm curious, please provide link to any capable tool.

http://www.openlaszlo.org/ http://www.swishzone.com/

Apart from the links 'geeymb' posted, FlashDevelop is a popular free tool to create flash content [flashdevelop.org]

Scribd uses 'pdf2swf' from swftools.org to convert pdfs(Not sure if they still use it. ref: http://www.swftools.org/references.html )

Scaleform depends heavily on Flash[scaleform.com]. Ming library is a nice option to create dynamic swf files on server side[libming.org].

A nice little online editor and compiler can be found here: http://www.victordramba.com/?p=31

Although there are so many nice, robust open source tools built around Flash, i haven't heard of Adobe actively promoting any of them.

Flex: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk

They sell a modified Eclipse IDE called Flash Builder but you can also compile and code without it.

"The $600 Flash authoring tool is the only way to produce Flash applications."

FlashDevelop : Free. OS Flex Compiler : Free.

If you're going to flame, at least know what you're talking about.

OK, let's be realistic here - this a little bit like saying that since there is GNUstep and GCC, you don't really need a Mac to develop for the iPhone. The bulk of Flash content online is developed with Adobe's authoring tools. That's why they are so protective of Flash.

I'm a Flash Developer and, like many other Flash devs, I don't use Adobe's tools (I use FDT, which isn't free, but isn't Adobe either).

I agree that Flash isn't as open as many people would like, but it is way, way more open than the iPhone ecosystem.

I second that. I've not used the Adobe IDE for a few years.

lurch_mojoff, please don't claim your personal experience as standard practice.

Try a search on Google, or read a few blogs about Flash development.

Thirded. I've used FlashDevelop exclusively for a few years and used MTASC before that. There's really no need to pay for Adobe's tools to make Flash content.

Wrong. I've built a larger Flash-based application (no public link, sorry) using nothing but the Flex SDK and Java. You simply don't need Adobe's authoring tools to make a viable application.

The now free Flex SDK not too long ago was the premiere Flash tool.

However the tool comparison is absurd. Having the freedom to choose tools doesn't mean they all have to be free.

And when the first sentence of the blog entry, the basis for all that follows, is so wrong... shouldn't the correction/retraction for that be at the top, not at the bottom?

"Aliens attack.... because of that something else... something more still... Ok, it wasn't really aliens and there wasn't an attack, but a lot of that other stuff is maybe still true." Just seems weaselly to me.

Apple probably loves choice as well. They should have the choice to design their products as they wish. I have the choice to buy Apple's products if I wish.

If you need flash on your phone, don't buy an iPhone. Choice is great.

I have no problem with Apple excluding Flash from iPhone. Choice is great.

However, I don't care for the mob mentality that is perpetuating false information in the name of "freedom of web".

>There’s many HTML rendering engine implementations, the best few are totally open source with Apple being the major contributor to the best one, WebKit.

Not so many people would agree that Webkit is the best HTML rendering engine (Gecko, KHTML or Opera, anyone?).

Webkit is KHTML.

Webkit briefly was KHTML, but the past 7-8 years of development clearly distinguished one from the other. Apple sends the changes they've made back to the KHTML folks, but as I understand it, KHTML hasn't simply adopted all of Apple's changes lock-stock-and-barrel.

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