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Comment by globalrev | Hacker News Reader

because flash sucks?

Could you elaborate?

Maybe it's not convenient for developers, but the result is better for users than an ad hoc mix of old web technologies that is seriously lacking in features and plagued with compatibility problems.

It appears that AJAX cross-browser compatibility problems can be solved using infinite money.

Besides video, what compelling Flash features aren't available in JS+HTML?

Which would be better for building a word processor or illustrator service?

And even if it is not necessary (e.g., for an email service), users still like to use a more professional looking site.

Even if we take your first question as true (and that is highly doubtful) it is far from clear that users prefer sites which "look more professional", cf: plentyoffish.com

It's also far from obvious that an all-flash site looks more professional than a flash-free one: if you want to make a site look tacky, just throw in some gratuitous flash or animated gifs and you're away.

Flash is useful for single player, little games, that you can play in the browser without installation.

In other words, flash is an awkward adaptor (plugin) to support a form of media (fully interactive games) on a platform (web browser) that was never really intended to support it.

Like Tetris?

http://halogen.note.amherst.edu/~jdtang/tetris/

FWIW, I'm using mixed Flash & JavaScript for my startup (Flash for embedding, JavaScript for the site itself). I've got Asteroids, Pong, and Brickbats all working in pure JavaScript. And I'm just hooking up code right now that lets you edit the games in real-time, no need to reload anything. That ranges from very-difficult to impossible with Flash.

From the Google Webmaster Central Blog: "Try to use Flash only where it is needed... this makes you[r] site accessible to a larger audience, including, for example, blind people using screen readers, users of old or non-standard browsers, and those on limited low-bandwidth connections such as on a cell phone or PDA."

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses...

I can think of a few good examples of web sites which use Flash effectively, e.g. the BBC 'Get Cooking' site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/get_cooking/

However, Flash normally seems to be used for displaying pointless, obnoxious splash screens which add no value for the user.

> I can think of a few good examples of web sites which use Flash effectively

Youtube!

But why not use Flash for the entire site rather than just the video player?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=164464

you gotta be trolling...

because flash isn't always cross platform. those of us on linux had to wait 2 or more years (I really don't recall) for adobe to roll out a flash 9 from flash 7 for linux. It took another year after that to get it stable.

Also if you are blind how do you view flash websites? it has serious problems with usability for those who are disabled.

it also has usability problems for those who aren't disabled. I don't like flash websites because I can never find my way around. I can't run them through translator's either (an artist I like, who's native language is spanish, website is in flash, I can't read or translate the spanish because of that, and the english version has been coming soon for 2 or more years).

Because when you display all that extra site stuff with flash you take away tons of simple but important functionality.

     copy/paste

     save as...

     view image

     copy image location

     Bookmark this

     Open in new tab

etc. you get the idea.

1) Copy-past works just fine, at least with flex 3 text or textarea controls 2) Saving the swf is easy, and you can view it any time 3) Images are usually embedded, and you can get them with a resource viewer 4) Copy image location - this is not necessary, as images are usually embedded 5) flash supports url fragments for navigate (path after #), so as long as the flash site uses fragments, it is bookmarkable 6) open in new tab works

I'm curious where you got this misinformation, anyway.

Open in new tab only works to open the flash page in a new tab, subsequent browsing within the flash page does not allow one to open in a new tab.

The difference is that for flash websites, the developer has to actively be 'nice' to allow these things (default=not accessible), whereas with html+css+javascript, the developer has to actively be obnoxious to NOT allow these things (default=accessible).

A basic understanding of flash, computers, combined with browsing the web and making observations and deductions.

    1) With HTML you don't have to use textarea controls.

    2) Saving an SWF is not trivial.

    3) How much of your target audience really bothers to find a resource viewer?

    4) It's necessary because your users don't have a resource viewer.

    5) So the flash developer has to know what 'url fragments' are in order to make portions of the app bookmarkable.

    6) I can't think of a flash app where open in new tab works.  Obviously it is not trivial to implement

> However, Flash normally seems to be used for displaying pointless, obnoxious splash screens which add no value for the user.

How is that relevant to this discussion?

It's a verbose way of saying 'Flash sucks'.

To some extent, you can ameliorate these concerns, but using Flash for a website generally leads to usability issues.

Here's an article from me explaining why, if you're interested.

http://informationrain.com/2007/07/25/why-i-dont-make-flash-...

In my opinion, flash should mainly be used for what it's great at....making games, some types of interactive tools, and a decent quality cross-platform video solution.

Actually it's not always better for users. There are usually tradeoffs when choosing technologies and this is no exception. There are two (maybe three) fundamental issues with Flash.

The vast majority of internet content is conveyed with text, links, and images. Even a with a site like YouTube, there's a host of information related to each video that is best conveyed using text, links, and images. And apart from the rendering part images are essentially just links. Flash has a whole lot of overhead and does not perform basic text and linking tasks very well.

The second is that it has limited access to the underlying operating system.

The third is that it's a proprietary environment controlled by Adobe.

actually flash may "suck", but the flex (and air) sdk is not half bad... even I could learn it in about half a day and managed to put together some pretty sophisticated tools at work (game development stuff)..

the real reason i would say google would not want to use flash is due to its not-so-openness and thereby prepping itself for more uncertainity in the future.

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