Nitpick: I think you meant to write Al Gore.
Progress is good. That Flash is progress is an extraordinarily debatable proposition.
With you as a teacher, I’d say it’s possible.
Try again. The use of a file format that creates large files and constrains the way users can access your site is bad. You may have noticed some of the bad feeling it leads to, from some of the posts above.
And this disagrees with what has been said in the OP or those who agree with him…how exactly?
Damn you, and your little dawg too.
BTW, I think Flash is amazing in the right context.
It certainly isn’t “shite”. It can handle vectors, sound, animation, interactivity, and all at amazingly narrow bandwidth.
The problem is just that it’s often used incorrectly.
I’m having a vision. I can see Iteki. S/he’s doing something. . . working I think. Yes, working. I see letters and numbers on a. . . a screen it looks like. Yes. . . a screen, like a monitor. S/he’s working hard, yes very hard. Slaving away at a. . . something with keys. A keystone? No, not a keystone. It’s a keyboard-- yes. Typing at on a keyboard doing something creative-- ah creating a. . . sight? Designing glasses? No, not that kind of sight. S/he’s designing a. . . site!
A site with devs? Divas? Wait a minute. . . It’s all becoming clear to me. *Iteki is designing a web site for deviants! Oh, it’s so beautiful! It’s got moving images of. . . midgets making it with monkeys covered in latex!
And what, pray tell, do you think makes this possible, people? It’s the designing tool of the future! It’s Flash Fucks!
[size]How many times will I have to download crap onto my computer so web designers can show how “cutting edge” they are?[/size]
Hmmmmm… what would Weebl say?
It doesn’t disagree with them. It agrees with them.
The argument here is very much the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” one. Yes there are shit implementations of Flash in inappropriate settings, badly done etc. This does not mean that as the OP states “everyone hates Flash”, or that Flash should be “immediatly and totally renounced”.
However, I love that the web is not only informational, but also artistic and creative and emotional. I even have a love/hate relationship to the fact that anyone can make a site about anything they like and have it online. This is both a horrendous and wonderful thing.
The problem isn’t with Flash, or with Javascript or with anything else, the problem to educate developers about usability, educating clients about using a reputable dev (not their son, cousin, aunty), and continuing to develop the search engines and indexes in order to keep the various sections clear of eachother (as is presently in development with separating blogs from other search types).
I’m reminded of the two basic rules of programming, as introduced to my by my first CompSci professor:
Rule #1: The user is an idiot. (anything they can do wrong, they will do wrong, and you have to be able to handle it).
Rule #2: Idiots can be amazingly resourceful (they will screw things up in ways that you wouldn’t think possible).
You can’t spell luser without user…
I hate Flash. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It is too slow on dial-up and used far too often for all the wrong things. Now, I do admit that in some forms, such as videos it does deliver a decent animation in a pretty tight bandwidth in comparison to other methods.
Amen to that!
Flash sucks. All this complaining about users being unable to use it and corporate designers using it badly does not change the fact that Flash has been responsible for more time wasted on the Web than any single app, and I’m including Javascript Web games (perhaps the lamest thing going).
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck and flies like a duck, it’s a duck. Flash is a duck, and no protestation by web designers who think THEY can make it work doesn’t change the fact that Flash is a duck.
HTML good. Flash bad. End of story.
Speaking on behalf of the millions of us who do not and according to the phone/cable co. WILL NOT for a couple more years have home access to anything above 56K, may I say anything that increases the download requirements is a pain in the arse. Flash in particular. I try to stay current but please, people, some minimal back/cross-compatibility will be appreciated.
But more basically, and beyond issues of Flash or Shockwave or or yENC graphics, which have relatively straightforward (if sometimes locally unfeasible) solutions, my capital demand of with web/net designers/authors/correspondents is simple:
Give me the *&^%$#@ INFORMATION.
NOW.
It’s a communications system. That’s what this whole construct is for. Don’t make me go on a mystery hunt for the information and don’t waste my time with bells and whistles. I can take drugs if I want a wild sensory experience and I can drink if I want to feel stupid.
If the bells and whistles actually improve the effectiveness of the communication, knock yourself out but make sure you assemble it right on your end to begin with so that the end user can do something with it other than curse at the screen. If OTOH it’s just to show off how your programmer’s dick is bigger than the other protrammers’, cram it. Sideways.
Good (perhaps “beautiful” might not be too strong an epithet here?) example of Flash use.
Crap example of Flash use.
I’m pretty much with ** jjimm ** on the use of Flash but I would also say I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the proprietary character of it. It’s not like Macromedia are trying to do a Bill Gates/Internet Explorer thing but . . but instinctively, I don’t like that it’s expensive enough to acquire (legitimately) so as to provide an economic barrier to entry. Hell, in all honesty, I hate that it isn’t Open Source.
In mitigation though, Macromedia have in the past made Flash damn easy to crack. Maybe they recognise, unofficially, that barrier to entry that so disadvantages non-industrial world folks. Or maybe they don’t . . .
I’m pretty much with ** jjimm ** on the use of Flash but I would also say I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the proprietary character of it. It’s not like Macromedia are trying to do a Bill Gates/Internet Explorer thing but . . but instinctively, I don’t like that it’s expensive enough to acquire (legitimately) so as to provide an economic barrier to entry. Hell, in all honesty, I hate that it isn’t Open Source.
In mitigation though, Macromedia have in the past made Flash damn easy to crack. Maybe they recognise, unofficially, that barrier to entry that so disadvantages non-industrial world folks. Or maybe they don’t . . .
Flash in the right context, is good-rathergood, as someone mentioned.
However, I like to see a WARNING first.
Iketi, I’m SO sorry that some of us are too poor to afford a cable modem or digital or whatever. Yes, us poor peons on dial up-what are we thinking? :rolleyes:
I’m tired of having to wade through the crappy intros to get to the good stuff, and I’m especially tired of having it freeze up my damn computer.
The same goes for midis and fancy schmancy little java applets.
Why exactly do people loathe flash so much?
Long intros
Non searchable
Mysterymeat navagation.
What else?
Why exactly do people loathe flash so much?
Long intros
Non searchable
Mysterymeat navagation.
What else?
Another ‘no’ vote.
It’s ‘kewl’ the first few times you see it and then it’s a goddam waste of time. ‘Skip intro’ my eye!
Back to you, nerds!