HTML 5, are Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX in trouble? | Hacker News Reader

HTML 5, are Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX in trouble?

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16 pointsradley14 comments

HTML 5 is part of the death-recipe for these native RIA technologies, but there is one other major missing piece at the moment - a fast and dependable javascript engine that can be assumed to exist on client machines.

HTML 5 just provides the UI / Drawing capabilities, but it will have to rely on Javascript perform the processing logic that is necessary in most Rich Internet Applications.

So, when it can be assumed that HTML 5 is fully implemented AND there is a fast enough Javascript engine to rival native code (similar to .NET in silverlight, actionscript in Flash, and Java in JavaFX) - then then open web will truely take over.

And personally, I cannot wait for that day.

We're also missing an IDE as "good" (relatively) as Flash, because at the moment there's no end to end production tools that can produce the rich experiences users can expect from Flash.

Shouldn't that be "AIR" instead of Flash (that's flash+flex)?

Although HTML5 doesn't have a server-side that's necessary to compete with AIR, Silverlight and JavaFX, this gap has been filled many times by everyone. What is missing is excellent design tools - of which Adobe is the master (consider photoshop). And so HTML 5 opens an opportunity for design tools that take advantage of it (and probably a nicely integrated suite of server tools too). Adobe surely has a project/s underway to fill it. But it's still an opportunity. One nice thing about IT is that if you don't get in on the ground floor, you just have to wait 5-10 years to reinvent it for the next platform. In IT, everyone gets second chances (and third, fourth,...)

Why AIR - the desktop runtime?

Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX are the right competing technologies.

The category is Rich Internet Applications.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Integrated_Runtime

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaFX

I'm not just being pedantic, it's that HTML5 is for the browser (not the desktop) and not particularly connected to the server-side (IIUC). However, HTML5 is competing with Flash, and the browser-based client-side aspect of the others.

But I don't claim to be an expert on HTML5, and checking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html5#New_APIs it has "Offline storage database", which is one of the key points for RIA.

That's my reasoning. Now your turn: why do you think Flash is the right competing technology?

HTML5, Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX are all technologies for building apps that run (primarily) in a browser.

AIR isn't one of these, its a wrapper for deploying applications based on Flash or HTML/Javascript as desktop apps.

I thought the main point was that they run as internet-enabled desktop apps. I guess it's debatable how central that is.

It's too soon, but I have no doubt that JavaScript improvements and HTML 5 will completely annihilate any need of Flash &co, but it's just intuition :)

JavaFX/Silverlight/Flex are naturally converging to a browser-like structure (a DOM tree with graphical nodes), trying to emulate what the browser yet is. For technically simple - but logically intricate - application (like RIAs!) design tools will matter, not the platform itself (it remembers me how Eclipse saved Java from the decline).

What web-servers/frameworks are HTML 5 compliant?

I guess what I'm asking is, can ASP.NET, Apache, Tomcat (etc.) at this very moment spit out HTML5 code?

Why wouldn't they? It's just text.

Also ASP.Net is a whole different beast from Apache & Tomcat, you probably mean IIS?

I think it will take time. I'm honestly not familiar with Silverlight and JavaFX, but matching AS3's capabilities(OOP, drawing API, Loader classes, filters, tweening engines, particle systems, 3D) and the flash 9 browser plugin's penetration isn't trivial.

I'm honestly not familiar with Silverlight and JavaFX, but matching AS3's capabilities of OOP...

Um, Silverlight and JavaFX have .Net and Java inside, respectively. They don't have to work to "match" OOP, they bring pre-existing OOP to the party. With extensive general-purpose class libraries.

I don't know anything about JavaFX, but Silverlight also brings pre-existing XAML, which already has drawing and animation classes. And possibly "loader classes" and "filters", I'm not sure what you mean by those).

I think you misunderstood; I didn't mean that Silverlight and JavaFX have to work to match as3/flash9, but that HTML 5/JS do.

They're in deep trouble, the second I can count on our website visitors having a HTML5 enabled browser.

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