No that’s not what he said at all. He said that funnelling developers away from creating content that annoyed users was silly.
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Well yes, you can live in hope that overnight that ideal world will materialise. Meantime, tools that produce good results despite the fact that we do not live in that ideal world are good tools. And Flash is not.
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You can clearly read when you choose to, but perhaps before getting sarcastic you could do me the courtesy of reading all my posts. If you did so, you would see that by making this comment you are just continuing to emphasise why Flash is a bad tool.
Well, I have read all of your posts, and am at a loss as to where you think you got into specifics. There was the hitler analogy, and the columbine analogy, a comment about bunny rabbits and then one where you say that tool designers should not only be concerned about how a tool will be used by experts, but how it will be used by morons. This is all very well, but it really doesn’t explain how one might go about creating a flexible interactive content tool without enabling some really shitty design. I apologise if I’ve missed such specifics, but I really can’t see them, to be honest.
I’ll try an analogy of my own. Hammers are immensely useful for banging in nails. When used by morons, however, they have a tendency to shatter thumbs. One could fix this problem by making the hammers all squishy so it doesn’t hurt when morons use them, but their essential hammerishness is rather diminished by this change, wouldn’t you agree? Experts will always need a heavy, hard thing to make pointy things go into flat things. The morons will see the wonderful things achievable when pointy things go into flat things, and will want to try it too. Monkey see, monkey do. Blaming experts and hammers for the existence of morons is simply the wrong approach.
A large reason why bad sites (in all formats) exist, IMO, is that in many cases there is not a clear enough link between the website and the revenue stream for companies/individuals to actually consider the effect of their website beyond its image and how it reflects their company. This is borne out by Sam Stone’s earlier examples - the companies that rely 100% on their website for revenue (amazon, ebay, google) have clean, well-designed sites. By contrast, the Royal Albert Hall sells a tiny minority of its tickets through its website, and as a consequence has come up with this monstrosity. Now tell me; what specific features of flash should be disabled to prevent that misuse, while not ruining the tool for sites like weebl and bob, or that nice game site whose name I’ve forgotten with the funky music and the bees.
I got news for you, if a designer is so stupid as too add a one minute intro with sound to a website, then ain’t so safeguard in the world will morph him into being a better designer.
Limitations, even well intended ones, will only affect the good designers.
I think WE and I have gotten as far as we can, but I do want to provide an answer to this all-powerful hammer analogy with a parable.
Ralph the clumsy oaf works on the roof of a 10-story building in a densely populated area. He pounds things flat with his hammer up there, every day. And, being a clumsy oaf, he drops a hammer off of the roof at least twice a day. He knows that he goes through a lot of hammers that way, but he knows of no other way to do his job, for he is also somewhat dim-witted.
Well, the pedestrians who have to walk next to the building decided to complain to Ralph.
“Ralph!” they say, “Quit dropping hammers on us! You killed 4 men last week!”
“Impossible” says Ralph, “I need my hammer to do my work, and I cannot keep from dropping it repeatedly, for I am a clumsy oaf. Perhaps you should just look up more often while walking under my building, so you can better avoid my hammers. I am too dim-witted to think of a better solution.”
So then the pedestrians go to Ralph’s hammer suppliers, and explain to them that Ralph is not fit to hold a hammer.
“Sorry,” the suppliers say, “Ralph is one of our best customers. He buys a dozen hammers a week! I must continue to sell him hammers.”
“Is there not SOMETHING you can do to make Ralph more safe? For we shall surely kill him ourselves is something is not done to stop him, and then you will be completely without a customer.”
“Well, if you put it that way…” says the supplier, “I can tie a string to the hammer! Then Ralph can tie the other end to his hand! He will still be able to use the hammer in the same manner, but the string will catch it when he drops it, and it will not kill anybody, and I will find something else to sell to Ralph, for he is not too bright and will buy anything I tell him to.”
Ralph liked the idea, because the pedestrians no longer hated him, and he no longer lost so many hammers, so it was worth it to spend more money on a hammer with a string. The pedestrians liked it because they were no longer getting killed, and, once their anger went away, came to realize that they liked Ralph’s flat things. And they lived happily ever after.
And I don’t know what flash’s “string” would be, although having a little wizard pop-up and scream at the developer “You stupid idiot, you’re putting in a 1 minute intro with sound that a user will have to watch the whole of before they get to any content! Users hate that! Don’t do it! Let me show you how to make it optional instead!” would certainly cut down on the number of 1 minute intros with sound on the web.
Ah, but the problem is that, in reality, once Ralph gets his new hammer-with-a-string, he’ll find that the string chafes his wrist, and either (1) doesn’t tie the string to his wrist, or (2) snips it off all together.
It’s really very simple, when you stop making excuses for your hobby horse and just stand back and get some perspective.
1/ the developers that have built the WWW (good, bad, indifferent, I don’t care, just the ones that exist, not the ideal ones, not particularly the experts, not particularly the morons, just the actual real life ones out there) use HTML
2/ the developers that have built the WWW (good, bad, indifferent, I don’t care, just the ones that exist, not the ideal ones, not particularly the experts, not particularly the morons, just the actual real life ones out there) use Flash
3/ users like the results of 1/. The result of 2/ is users with steam coming out of their ears in frustration and anger
4/ you will note that only the tool (Flash) changes between 1/ and 2/
5/ assuming you give a damn about users opinions (an assumption that might well not be justified in relation to certain posters in this thread) the inescapable conclusion is that Flash is bad.
Whining that it can be used well is not the point. Whining that there is no way that Flash could be improved emphasises how bad it is (ie irredeemably). Whining that without Flash, cool sounds and animation etc would not be possible is something that most users (see above) could not give a damn about.
I haven’t. I don’t have to. I’m not Macrovision, I have no need to solve its problems. I am a user. What concerns me is that Macrovision’s tool results in my pain, I don’t give a damn what they do to resolve the problems their tool has. I don’t give a damn if those problems are unresolvable resulting in their product being consigned to the dustbin of annoying technology.
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Never said that. Your obtuseness is, however, obvious from the manner in which you distort what I say. You clearly are quite unable to come to grips with what users have to face: bad content which overwhelmingly comes from Flash and not from HTML. Deal with it and stop trying to pretend (by distorting what I say) that the problem is limited to developers who are clinically mentally deficient.
See above. See if I give a shit.
If you take away the distortions of reality inherent in your analogy, it is actually quite a useful demonstration of where you are going wrong.
A hammer passes certain tests. Firstly, is it very useful? Yes, it is an indispensably useful tool, for doing jobs that have to be done.
Secondly, is a hammer safe and annoying to users? Your exaggeration aside, a hammer is pretty safe and doesn’t annoy users that much if at all. I’m a complete klutz, and also someone who does a lot of amateur carpentry (don’t buy an old wooden house. Just don’t do it. :)). But even I don’t hit myself on the thumb very often. And when I do, (your bullshit about shattered thumbs aside) all that results is a bruise. Overall, I don’t mind hammers, and I don’t know anyone who does.
Thirdly, if you don’t like hammers, are you likely to have them foisted on you? No, you’ll probably just stay away from doing carpentry.
Let’s apply that three tier test to Flash
Is it an indispensably useful tool? Don’t make me laugh.
Does it annoy users much? Is the pope catholic? Have you read this thread?
Is it foisted on people who don’t like it? Yessiree Bob. That’s one of the most annoying aspects.
For crying out loud - if you bothered to read back through the thread, you’d see that I don’t like the predominant usage of flash. As a navigational and content-management tool, it’s no good, just as a hammer is no good for making scrambled eggs. However, I am capable of acknowledging that it does have certain uses for which it is eminently suited, namely animation and games. You seem either unable to do this or willing to completely ignore them in the interests of getting your way. Well, fine, but it’s hardly the most pragmatic approach, don’t you think?
Basically, you are proposing the emasculation of a tool which has genuine use (and how you’re going to force Macromedia to hobble their product is beyond me), while I am proposing using standards and best practice guidelines to discourage the use of flash where it is inappropriate. I know which of these sounds like a hobby horse to me.
I have asked how you would go about designing an animation package that can’t be used to create interstitial nightmares, but instead you prefer to claim that I’m twisting your words and claim that no-one will miss any features of flash were it gone. Well, I’m sorry to tell you but there are people who like flash games, there are people who like Weebl and Bob, and rathergood.com etc. etc. etc. and as long as there are people who want something, it will be supplied. If in some bizarro-world you did manage to get flash banned, do you really think that nothing will replace it?
And to think you’re telling me to get a sense of perspective.
Indeed. But think about this for a second. What would happen if you put up a pit thread entitled “memo to carpenters: everybody hates hammers!” and then whined about how you were so sick of hammers being used to scramble eggs?
Now observe this thread. Note a difference. What conclusion, pray, do you draw from that?
I am quite able to understand the trivial frippery that Flash is capable of. I even quite enjoy some of it. Which would upset me more: that I might miss out on that enjoyment if Flash vanished from my life or that I have to put up with the crap that Flash is actually mostly used for? The latter. And going by this thread, I am far from alone.
I would call that a very pragmatic approach.
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[My comment added in italics]
I don’t care what you advocate as long as it turns Flash from a good to a bad product, from a user’s point of view. Others have suggested (I though you included, perhaps not) that “morons” (as you call them) are always going to produce annoying stuff with Flash, and that there was nothing to be done about that.
Now you appear to be suggesting that a bit of standards tightening etc and the problem will go away. I think you’re dreaming, but good luck to you. In the meantime, until Macromedia or the web designer world implements changes that work, Flash will remain in my judgement a bad product.
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[my comment added in italics]
The only bizarro world around here is the one in which you think that I ever suggested that Flash was going to go away, or in which I stated that I thought I could get it banned. I just don’t like it, and I think it is a bad product, neither proposition of which you have made a dent upon.
Truly impressive is your ability to beat up straw men, just a shame you are not able to do more.
