General Discussion - Flash vs HTML5 kasselbiddy - Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:21 pm Post subject: Flash vs HTML5
There is a bit of a hot debate going on at the moment regarding Flash “vs” HTML5, as a Flash developer I thought I would join in to share with you some of my points of view. Since I am an Actionscript developer you might think that I am going to fall in the easy and logical attitude of defending Flash(SWF to MOV converter mac) and Flex (since Flex is also concerned here) at any cost. Well no it’s not going to be the case. I am also not going to say that HTML5 is the long awaited messiah that is going to bring a new web paradigm to your browser. I think that the situation needs to be seen from a more rational and holistic point of view.
Many arguments are thrown in the air around the debate and tend to go from one extreme to the other one:
1, You have the “Flash-haters” that generally have never used Flash and hardly know what it does or could do (nor do they with HTML5 ). They keep coming up with the same old arguments “I hate Flash intros”, “I hate Flash banners”, “I hate Adobe”, “The Flash player crashes my browser”...etc
2, You have the “enlightened” HTML5 disciples who think that their new god is going to bring a new web order and that Flash and his minions are doomed.
3, You have the Flash(convert SWF to WMV) addicts that cannot be bothered to look at the big picture and will reject anything that could threaten their Flash way of life.
Obviously none of the arguments summoned by the categories above are wise since they are based on an emotional approach and not on a pragmatic set of arguments
Simplifying web development
I think there is a higher good, and for the web it is called “open standard”. The Flash player(SWF to MKV) is a fantastic platform but let’s not forget it is controlled by a single vendor, Adobe, very much like Windows is controlled by Microsoft. The Flash player is a wonderful step in the history of the web but it is a plugin and a plugin is something you plug in, it is not native. The big dream is that the internet should be relying on one solid open standard API supported throughout all browsers and from a philosophical approach HTML5 seems to me like a good step in that direction.
A wrong debate
There is no HTML5 versus Flash, I think they are not really competing to be honest. I cannot remember when the last time was that I created a full Flash(SWF to PNG) web site, most of my latest big projects are running outside a browser as desktop applications. We all hate Flash intros anyway and I never advocated that Flash was the best choice to create a web site. After the Flash fever that took over the web at the end of the nineties many big corporations, especially in the car industry, moved away from the “pure flash” website and are now using a mix of Flash and HTML instead.
Some facts on a good use of the Flash player
It’s been used many times as an argument that “Flash is a CPU hog”. Let’s not forget here that a lot of Flash developers are not coming from an academic programming background and are self-trained, for the best and also for the worse. The nature of Flash (that is both graphic and code oriented) generated the new breed of designer-developer, the “devigner”, a generally well balanced individual with a good graphic and code approach but with great variations. Creating and running some impressive Flash content is not so difficult if you understand how Flash works and how to copy and paste the code of others and where to paste it and if you are a bit clever that is not too difficult. Now having that same content run smoothly without leaving a huge memory footprint and overheating your CPU is something else that should be left to the professional and that is another story. The problem with Flash is that the market has been quickly plagued with wannabe Flash developers who have no clue about memory and CPU management. So yes a lot of Flash content currently running on the web will clog your CPU and memory but only when it’s been created by beginners with no insight in OOP and no good coding practises at all.