And of course I'd like to give Jan a hug for quotes such as "Flash caught on because it provided design functionality that HTML couldn't match and solved problems that no other technology could. It succeeded because website designers, developers and owners wanted it, not because Adobe needed it."
Very true. And that also means that Adobe gave those designers, developers and content owners the right tools for the job at the right time. Let's not underestimate the foresight Adobe had back in 2000 or so - long before anyone ever heard of Youtube and the like - when the foundations were laid to make Flash the de facto video standard on the web. While I doubt they envisaged quite this level of success they were certainly aiming for it. Has Adobe been able to leverage the success of Flash video and turn it into a money spinner for themselves? Not really. But have they managed to secure the future of the Flash platform for some time to come? Definitely.
It's onwards and upwards from here for Flash video. Adobe is undoubtedly busy cooking new and clever features in the labs, and anyone who has seen or watched the RTMFP sneak peaks at MAX knows that this technology could be another game changer. I can't wait to see more. There are many good ideas still to be had.
PS: I recommend you read Jan's full article, including the first part which focuses more on UGC and H.264.
As I've mentioned here before, I'm an ASP.NET and Microsoft supporter, but Silverlight has always been a thorn in my side.
As we've seen time and time again, Silverlight doesn't hold a flame to Flash. "Oh... but it's only version 3 now" or "It provides the underlying core component for architecting classes based on yada and blee bah... ". Serioulsy, designers could care less and developers are not interested either!
I was starting to worry that Silverlight might actually be catching on so it's good to hear I'm not the only one still hoping to see it go the way of Microsoft Money.
I feel much better now, thanks!
Maybe to cool down I'll go watch an MS Office demo.... in Flash (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA10167...)
http://codertron.blogspot.com/2009/05/flex-3-versu...
what about those that do not have C# programming skills or couldn't care less to learn it? How is Silverlight aiming to get designers on board who do nt want to go anywhere near MS design tools?
Lastly, what is your predicted timeframe for Flash going down in flames? I'd like to revisit this discussion when that time comes. How long do you anticipate I have to wait for that? Silverlight is in version 3 now and still has virtually no traction.
haxe sounds very cool, I'll need to check it out
@ashr
why don't you share some of your awesome work with us? I'd love to see some cool projects from a real (yet anonymous) developer like yourself.
Because Silverlight is an extention of .NET you can choose any language to program in. You anti-Microsoft people should love Phython cause that's what you do. For that matter, you can just use Javascript.
Your argument would be a much better one if you could actually point to some decent projects. Show me the Silverlight equivalent of eternalmoonwalk, or wechoosethemoon, or gtiproject.com or... the list goes on.
The 'best' so far seems to be a bunch of video players to recreate what has been done for the last 5 years.
POC I did in 4 hours:http://miragestudios.co.za/hax/TestPage.html
Still a lot of work to be done, and the theming can't be auto applied on a grid as it is currently because it causes performance issues. Drag and drop a song from the left to add it to the shopping cart on the right.
Do that in 4 hours in flash / asp.net / php / html&javascript or whathaveyou...
Data loaded from xml files, all controls created dynamically at runtime. And this was done by a .Net/Java developer with NO silverlight experience.
Initially I thought silverlight sucked as well. Look a bit deeper and you'll see the possibilities.
Flash is a great design tool, but a crap developer tool. Silverlight is great for both.
Great laugh. You clearly have no clue.
@ashr
This must be great for someone like yourself who's new to RIA development, but I must tell you that we've been doing this kind of thing for years... Ever used Flex? You should try it.
It's good to see a developer motivated enough to produce what you did to make a point. But it could be done just as quickly using Flex or Ajax (Rad Controls). Silverlight doesn't seem to bring much to the table.
And I'd like to point out something that Flash deniers fail to realize...
MS develops new technology at a snail's pace. And many times it is only when another technology is enjoying too much success. It seems that lately they only innovate when forced to by competition.
On the other hand, Adobe continues to innovate at blinding speed, and not because they "have" to, rather because they are constantly pushing the envelope. Examples...
1. There was a need for enterprise developement so they brought us Flex.
2. What about desktop development? AIR
3. Flash is tied to a particular language? Apparently not thanks to Haxe, and other open source initiatives.
4. WMVs are what, 15 years old? In the past 6 or 7 years Macromedia/Adobe brought us FLVs, then MP4 streaming, and has since dominated the online video experience. Next you'll tell me that Flash applications will run on TVs and software will use voice recognition to automatically embed transcript metadata. Oh wait, this is all happening next year?
Bottom line... Flash isn't perfect, but neither is ASP.NET, Silverlight, AJAX, etc. It seems that Adobe will continue to move the Flash platform forward very quickly, while others sit idly by wondering what hit them. My fellow developers... don't become roadkill. :-)
When more than two of my clients know (or care) what Silverlight is, I'll take an interest in it
http://code.google.com/p/neash/
gives me the ability to write code in haxe using the Flash AVM2 api and compile it to OpenGL C++ and (now) HTML5 Canvas. All I have to do is add a --remap flash:neash in my compile.hxml and neash.Lib.init(); neash.Lib.run() in my entry point and voila.