When FutureSplash introduced a browser plug-in called FlashPlayer in 1996, I thought, "this is interesting". By 1999, when whole, groovy websites with bright colours, audio and animation were delivered in Flash (by then a Macromedia product), I thought, "this is going to change the web".
I spent the next year or two evangelising Flash, which had the good fortune of being bundled with IE, soon giving it a penetration of over 90%.
Around the same time, I discovered "usability". My fondness for Flash aesthetics conflicted with my passion for user-centered design. The truth was, most Flash-based sites looked great but worked terribly.
Jakob Neilsen seemed to signal the death-knell for Flash when he wrote in October 2000 that Flash was 99% bad.
I understood the argument, but I didn't fully agree. A colleague and usability expert Chris Rourke pointed out that Flash wasn't the problem; the way it was used was the problem. Theoretically, you could build a Flash site that perfectly replicated a HTML site.
I held out hope for Flash when Macromedia introduced Generator 2.0 in 2000. Generator allowed Flash to talk to a database. Flash sites could now achieve something regular web pages could not - they could update data on-the-fly, without the user having to refresh the page.
Using Flash and Generator, web developers and designers could now build Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).
But very few of them did.
A few more years went by. Flash sites continued to be show-offy and user-unfriendly, so I gradually withdrew my support. I believed that Flash had its uses but these were limited to online software demos, etc. Flash continued to improve as a product, and was bought by Adobe in 2005, but the web still boasted all-too-few examples of Flash-powered RIAs.
Today, we mainly encounter Flash in intrusive advertising, though it is also finding a niche as the best way to compress and deliver video clips (think YouTube).
Meanwhile, RIAs are suddenly all the rage - see Gmail, Kayak, Google Docs, etc. But these RIAs don't use Flash; they use AJAX.
How did Flash lose out on the race to deliver RIAs? Let me suggest a few reasons:
1. Proprietary Code and Applications
The code used within Flash is called ActionScript. It's like JavaScript but it's different. Coders wouldn't have any use for it outside the Flash environment.
In addition, the only database that Flash works with is ColdFusion. Most web developers, on the other hand, prefer to work with common web scripting languages such as JavaScript, PHP, etc. They like to use low-cost environments, particularly the LAMP environment.
2. An Association with Graphic Design/Animation
People associated Flash with fancy graphics and things that clicked, buzzed and whirred - not serious computing.
3. Lack of Available Talent
As a result of 1 and 2 above, Flash developers (as distinct from Flash Graphic Artists or Flash Animators) are thin on the ground.
It is definitely easier to hire "vanilla web developers" than people who can do real engineering using Flash. I've ... resorted to hiring Java Developers and retraining them. ... You just don't face these kinds of staffing issues with JavaScript: there will always be web developers.
So, RIAs are here to stay. But Flash? Who knows? Still, I hope those Flashblocker guys don't get their way.
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Heya, thanks for the link!
Quick correction. There is no reason you can't use any database (mysql, oracle, etc) with flash. We have done two web apps (mindcanvas and slideshare) that make extensive use of Flash: one uses MSFT sqlserver, the other uses mysql.
I dont think most the points you mentioned are valid:
>>I held out hope for Flash when Macromedia introduced Generator 2.0 in 2000. Generator allowed Flash to talk to a database. Flash sites could now achieve something regular web pages could not - they could update data on-the-fly, without the user having to refresh the page.
Generator was used to create swfs on the fly. You can access data from a database using a middleware quite easily
>> In addition, the only database that Flash works with is ColdFusion
Flash does not access any database directly.
You can use any middleware: Coldfusion, Java, .Net, PHP. Pretty much anything which can output XML
Flash is now being used for creating applications and experiences not possible with Ajax at the moment.
See: www.nikestore.com, www.wallop.com and the list can go on...
I perfectly agree with Jonathan about lack of talent, but things should now improve as developers have with started Flex, which is now FREE as a platform.
Arpit & Jonathan,
Thanks for the corrections. Not being a developer, my understanding of what goes on beyond the client side is dim.
However, in my experience developers complained that Flash/Actionscript didn't have the openness/portability of other solutions.
Computers work on "proprietary" chips, built with "proprietary" factory techniques. At some point you have to ask yourself for real differences rather than marketing labels.
Nielsen later amended that 2001 conclusion.
Gmail isn't a Rich Internet Application... it just breaks out of the old page-refresh model by transferring text without resending the whole page.
Few Java-level developers adapted to the timeline of a visual authoring tool. Many are adapting to the XML-baesd interfaces of Adobe Flex 2. Check it out.
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