I increasingly find positions about flash are not based in first hand experience, believing ones experiences summarizes all experiences, or anecdotal knowledge based in popular belief about what we heard about something but might not have used ourselves.
With all the progress in tooling, it's completely reasonable that more and more folks might not remember how broken browser compatibility was between multiple browsers on the same computer in the age of Flash. It was nothing like today with shared engines and even shared runtimes like Webassembly. Browsers were young, at war and didn't lean towards being compatible on their HTML interpretation.
I spent as much time focusing on HTML compatibility, if not more, as Flash pains.
Flash helped cover some and even smooth of those gaps between web browsers where the same features didn't exist in each browser, or they did not implement HTML tags, or even Javascript in the same way.
Flash based technologies like Flex and Air really shed some light on what rich internet applications could do, and it's one area where HTML5 and JS have been able to provide some alternatives and evolution.
From a mobile perspective, it seemed like flash couldn't do much there...the same until I discovered Flash Lite. It quietly powered the GUI on many more devices than I ever imagined in its time.
Nokia adopted it and it was quietly embedded in far more devices to provide custom functionality than I realized around the world. It makes me consider Steve Jobs letter against flash at a time when he was also against custom apps and app stores in a different light.
Flash lite even appeared to power the internet channel on the Nintendo Wii.
Much of my flash exposure was to integrating with educational content, and in that way I has a direct exposure to many of the things thst simply weren't possible in its time. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I think today's environment of tools takes for granted how few tools there were during Flash. I truly had to create identical experiences in multiple browsers, and where avaikable, operating systems.
I also worry that new closed digital experience tools are simply trying to replace Flash with another closed garden.
Flash in some small ways delivered on the write one deploy anywhere promise made by Java, but for the average user. This should not be diminished in its age of Java applets, and many security issues with alternatives as well.
Flash helped me get my start and imagine and help deliver interactive digital experiences in a time when everyone was anchored in compact disc based rich experiences. Flash, and broadband internet helped move mountains forward.
I still look forward to find the set of solutions that completely replace what flash could do. While a closed source tool, it was uniquely democratizing and accessible.
With all the progress in tooling, it's completely reasonable that more and more folks might not remember how broken browser compatibility was between multiple browsers on the same computer in the age of Flash. It was nothing like today with shared engines and even shared runtimes like Webassembly. Browsers were young, at war and didn't lean towards being compatible on their HTML interpretation.
I spent as much time focusing on HTML compatibility, if not more, as Flash pains.
Flash helped cover some and even smooth of those gaps between web browsers where the same features didn't exist in each browser, or they did not implement HTML tags, or even Javascript in the same way.
Flash based technologies like Flex and Air really shed some light on what rich internet applications could do, and it's one area where HTML5 and JS have been able to provide some alternatives and evolution.
From a mobile perspective, it seemed like flash couldn't do much there...the same until I discovered Flash Lite. It quietly powered the GUI on many more devices than I ever imagined in its time.
Nokia adopted it and it was quietly embedded in far more devices to provide custom functionality than I realized around the world. It makes me consider Steve Jobs letter against flash at a time when he was also against custom apps and app stores in a different light.
Flash lite even appeared to power the internet channel on the Nintendo Wii.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Lite
Much of my flash exposure was to integrating with educational content, and in that way I has a direct exposure to many of the things thst simply weren't possible in its time. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I think today's environment of tools takes for granted how few tools there were during Flash. I truly had to create identical experiences in multiple browsers, and where avaikable, operating systems.
I also worry that new closed digital experience tools are simply trying to replace Flash with another closed garden.
Flash in some small ways delivered on the write one deploy anywhere promise made by Java, but for the average user. This should not be diminished in its age of Java applets, and many security issues with alternatives as well.
Flash helped me get my start and imagine and help deliver interactive digital experiences in a time when everyone was anchored in compact disc based rich experiences. Flash, and broadband internet helped move mountains forward.
I still look forward to find the set of solutions that completely replace what flash could do. While a closed source tool, it was uniquely democratizing and accessible.