nascentone

Saying they are "very different" because of closures is hyperbolic, but at any rate, yes, AS1 had closures like JS.

Yes there's a lot that a company could do fake a good OOP architecture which compiles down to standards soup, but such solutions tend to result in tons of extra generated crap. Dart compiles to JS... with a a simple "Hello World" app coming out as 17,000 lines of code!

Plus not having the structure as part of the standard will make iterative development a nightmare. Instead of being reliant on a proprietary runtime (like Flash Player) we are reliant on proprietary compilers and libraries. How is that better?

Designers love Flash because it gives you a canvas to express yourself on.

Standards do not. If you think it does, I would predict you aren't a designer, because there's a big difference between technical parity and realistic results.

I can concede that as a designer, I really don't care if HTML is technically better for some reason, I just want to have the freedom to do cool stuff, and that this is the tension between those are "Flash fanboys" and those who are Standards fanboys.

I knew exactly what I was doing with Flash, it was not a deal with anyone. I desperately want to do cool stuff with standards, believe me I'm in some ways I want good standards more than self-proclaimed standards advocates (I've even drafted my own additions and changes to standards technology, and always worked to make my SWFs as well integrated with the standard as possible.)

And the thing that amazes me is the fact that when it comes to longevity, Flash has nothing to apologize for. I can view Flash 3 SWFs and they look exactly how I made them. HTML sites break and blow up in spectacular fashion within months sometimes. A new browser comes out and now your beautiful website looks like trash because something isn't rendered the same. Not always, but more often than I want to deal with (which would be never), and I never once had that problem with Flash.

And I completely agree that Adobe lost their way. I've felt this way for several years now.

Wow. Certainly a different perspective. I thought Flash really changed the way we view the web for the better (video, audio, animation, interaction) pushed by artists who wanted these things for their own creative fulfillment, and standards should be grateful. I remember being told by pedantic standards advocates that all those things were not the purpose of the web and had no business, yet we did it any way out of "irresponsible" desire for "shiny toy" (I do find those descriptions slightly offensive, btw -- "pedantic" and "hyper-technical" are both terms I've heard such people use as words of praise for themself, but I don't mean them as compliments so I suppose I deserve the offense.)

I just wish you could do your thing, and I could do mine. Well, congrats, you win.

Thanks for your story, it's good to hear some success from someone who felt the same as I do now. I certainly hope I get past that hump, but after 2 years of using jQuery I haven't yet. I can see there being a turning point in 4-5 years, but that's in itself still rather depressing. Here's to hoping it's sooner.

Ha, +1 point for snarkiness, -10 points for thinking that walk cycle experiment is a comparable example to even average Flash animation work, +9 points hoping for the love of the internet that you were just trying to make a laugh = net worth of nothing.

"I don't know any Flash devs with CS degrees. They're all artists and designers and musicians who somehow got into development."

Exactly. And this is why Flash was so awesome.

Standards are the opposite side of the spectrum, full of the most pedantic and hyper-technical people, and it's why I hate standards. Just standardize everything in Flash and I'd be happy.

As an artist, you're right, I hated going from AS2 to AS3 but once I got past the challenge (rather quickly) I loved it. I'd like to have your enthusiasm, but going from Flash to standards doesn't look the same: I hated going from AS2 to AS3 because it made some things more strict, but it paid off because the resulting product was better. Going from Flash to HTML, however, is the opposite -- things are incredibly messy in JS, and as a result, stuff breaks and is inconsistent and buggy all over the place. This, to an artist, is soul crushing. I want to make cool stuff, and I will climb any mountain to do so, but once I do I don't want to see my work just crumble to bits because I switched to a different machine/device/screen.

I like your optimism about Javascript's future, but I think it's a bit naive. Even if Javascript was AS3 today, we would still have to deal with a lack of cross browser consistency, the ancient text document oriented DOM, a lack of the same powerful graphical APIs found in Flash, and the lack of a standard top level object oriented structure (as found in the Flash platform with MXML, SWFs, SWCs, symbol and timeline architecture, etc.)

I'm not just hoping I'm counting on Adobe or someone delivering a good Javascript IDE that mimics OOP design, and I'm keeping an eye on Google's Dart project, but even after that I'm not expecting the experience to be nearly as smooth or creatively liberating as Flash.

And to be clear, I am moaning about the language AND the DOM, but I would likely moan less if not for the DOM and the multiple interpretations of the language.

[Context: the deleted comment suggested we don't know Javascript because we were "moaning about using it" and we should "learn Javascript before knocking it"]

I know Javascript, your comment suggests you don't know ActionScript's history: AS1 was an ECMASscript language just like JS, so to that end it was actually literally the same language as JS running in a different environment with a different API. The latest iteration of JS has hardly changed since then, whereas AS1 evolved into AS2 then AS3, which is now a much more advanced OOP language, and it's still evolving. Going from AS3 to JS is literally like going backwards in time.

"Just keep making awesome things with whatever tools you have at your disposal."

This is what's depressing, though. I want to make awesome things, but HTML is simply an inferior and more restrictive platform than Flash. The thought of programming in Javascript instead of ActionScript 3 is soul-crushing. Javascript is basically ActionScript 1.0 (which I thought I migrated from years ago) without the cross browser consistency and more advanced graphical APIs.

Long live the internet, but losing Flash is a bad thing for the internet. It's not Flash that needs to die, it's the entire archaic and poor sighted standards stack (HTML/CSS/Javascript and the horrible plain file HTTP delivery system) in favor of a new standard stack that can actually do something close to the Flash Player.