1) The HTML spec at the time flash rose could do nothing of what it could today. Flash, applets delivered - relatively speaking. They didn't 100% hit the one code base that works the same everywhere promise, but came close. Maybe webassembly will lick that problem.
2) HTML interpretation has be ever been consistent between browsers. Respectfully, ie6 was smooth sailing. I'd advise studying life around ie3-4.
3) When Flash fell out of favor thanks to Steve Jobs, Flash Lite ran already, just fine on a lot of phones. It was used on a lot of devices quietly and may very well have been the android of its day. It was just a personal move. Steve Jobs also locked down the iPhone around that time (no app store) at the time.
The "future", html5 was not ready at that time. The web was held back and suffered for a number of years while there wasn't a viable alternative to flash and HTML5/JS still needed to mature and be ready to go.
The dangerous thing about saying html has successfully replaced the past is, we're doomed to repeat the past if we don't understand it due to hubris.
4) Every tech has contributed something valuable. Flash caused me more grief than I ever care to get into.
Flash type browser plugins helped deliver experiences that nothing else could for a very long time, and frankly when the html spec didn't have the foresight, or the capabilities in browsers.
5) Flash saw the value of basing their entire scripting language on actionscript, which is ECMAscript, which is Javascript... more than a decade before anyone thought of using Javascript for building apps.
6) Today's practice of building apps in Javascript in part is inspired outright from what Flash could let a developer do.
IE3-4 was probably nightmare to work with :)
> The dangerous thing about saying html has successfully replaced the past is, we're doomed to repeat the past if we don't understand it due to hubris.
I feel we will repeat some of the mistakes thanks to webassembly, but I'm not saying it shouldn't be the direction we are heading to. Luckily thanks to the open nature of developing these specs the process is more balanced between parties than ever.
The same can't be said for the design, interpretation or implementation of the html spec.
Open standards can also fall to paralysis of design by committee. Still, open is good (AV1 is also cause for optimism).
When open standards aren't possible or happening, innovation is undertaken by private companies.
I like wasm, but this unabashed overstatement completely ignores smaller browsers. Best of luck getting elinks to commit to wasm support.
The major browsers in marketshare.. being Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft are all on board with wasm.
Is there another thing you can find they agreed on to this degree relative to market share?
The wording of your comment makes me wonder if you know a bit more about wasm, particularly with smaller browsers (I am a fan of Opera too), so please feel free to share the smaller browser perspective.
Transcript: https://devchat.cachefly.net/javascriptjabber/transcript-124...
Find "Andrew Myers"
It probably could have been, pre-Oracle.
Netscape also had Jonathan Gay and his brother stop by to try to sell FutureSplash (what became Flash) to us post IPO, but so many companies were crowding the door, and the marketing guy vetting them was harsh, so they went to Macromedia. That was for the best: Netscape would not have built the great tools that Macromedia did.
So two "what if" near-misses re: early canvas-for-HTML. Sad but true!
Unfortunately not. We still can't measure text without putting it into the DOM and waiting for update, nor can we have weak references. And SVG is miles behind the performance that Flash's scenegraph had 10 years ago.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, yet you're evangelizing HTML5, that's the problem.
Talk to somebody who tried to bring Video or 2D(!) animated content over from Flash to the Web. It was (and remains) a total clusterfuck. Not just because of performance but because of compatibility. Flash just worked. Web video or (god forbid) WebRTC are still problematic.
That's not to say that I want Flash back, but ignoring that it was proprietary, it was the better technology.
Web video was "fixed" in the dying years of Flash. I remember cursing on HMTL5 video, but it was suddenly got performing really well and switched YouTube to it and never looked back. Just pick a graphics library and you'll be fine if you want to move vector stuff around. If you miss the flash IDE, then it still exists and can export to HTML5 standards.
Being proprietary was just part of the problem. I'm glad it showed us the way but it needed to be gone.
You followed other people doing the development at great expense. You're in no position to evangelize anything.
> Just pick a graphics library and you'll be fine if you want to move vector stuff around. If you miss the flash IDE, then it still exists and can export to HTML5 standards.
Hahahaha, yeah please use it. Please, I beg you. Use it and then come back and tell me it's just as good.
> I'm glad it showed us the way but it needed to be gone.
If it showed the way, people didn't quite see it, they went ahead with nonsense like SVG, which didn't work, so other people created Canvas, which still was massively slower than Flash. Just literally copying Flash would've been better.
I did use many graphics libraries before, thanks, they are fine.
You say things like "just export to HTML5 from Adobe Animate/Flash", but if you had actually used that, you would probably tell people to stay away from it, or at least acknowledge the caveats.
> It's really a sad story that HTML5 has been evangelized so strongly, yet even ten years later it can't hold a candle to Flash in many regards.
Not sad at all. It needs to be evangelized more since it's clear that other solutions did not work. By other solutions I mean a private company design something and forces it on the world. (Flash, Java applets, Real Player, Shockwave...)
We have all the features flash had now (and had it for many years now)