Hmm, why does flash kind of suck?

[grandpaw broon]

I was thinking about this this morning, i have been with flash since flash 5 an as1 and been bustin my *** trying to learn AS3 in totality, but when i actually stepped back i realised its kinda fake...

Like, Adobe seem to have an on going spiral of learning a new language every 2 years, an old habits die hard. So i end up unlearning things i grew to only just get used to.. an the results truely do not differ much....

I mean, when you look around the internet at flash sites, almost nothing has changed.

Why is there not direct hardware support? Everyone has had a 3d card for years now as standard the flash still slows down to a snails pace sometimes... with not much going on on screen.

The other thing, is why do adobe feel the need to close the right click menu? I mean, flash was build for interactive websites and presentations to begin with (well since 4 really) yet one of the most commonly used functions, the mouse buttons, are tampered with, just so people can zoom in and out and read that adobe flash player rules.

I have always felt somewhat claustraphobic in a flash application, i mean, if im looking for a new TV, an the company has a flash website for that TV, i tend to click out of it straight away and goto a review site because i know the flash site will be all bells and whistles and if there is a spec i want to compare, i probably cant copy and paste. Its almost like having a panel of buttons on a 747 but theres a layer of glass covering it, so only very specific things may be done.

I suppose i woke up this morning, and the pursuit of feeling compelled to learn AS3 was almost lost because i cant honestly do anything more with it really than i could with AS2, i mean, its a bunch of hassle for almost no gain. If u show me a AS2 and AS3 site i wouldnt be able to tell the difference.

Adding salt to the wound is how another version is already in development and what will they do next? Add a couple of new operators, turn everything upside down and on its head inside out, yet retain the same functionality but call it AS4?

If GUIs cant really be bothered with animations and things no more and the day of the vector animation and tween has gone, does than mean that flash will be used for one thing, and that is streaming video on the web?

Ajax is too clunky and stuff, but i do feel at home, google maps again would feel claustraphobic if it was done in Flash/Flex...

What do people see happening in the future and does flash have any rivals apart from Ajax that are worth while?

Im not hurting flash as i have always stood by it, but i guess i want somewhat transferable skills and not wasting my life learning and buying books for almost no change what so ever. We are still very limited after all.

[stedem]

To be honest, i have just the same feeling

[Pasquale]

that's why I use flash for animation and illustration only, and never deliver in swf.

[grandpaw broon]

Im quite interested in more views, why do u feel like that?

I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, thats fair play, so it takes me a while to grasp concepts and learn how to apply them and its almost compulsive disporder for me to feel the need to keep learning in my spare time incase i fall off the tech market with outdated skills yet there aint much jobs out there with this in demand, i dont know what .NET really is but theres 10000s of .net jobs.

It comes as a massive surprise for both yourselfs to reply in this way, id have thought id get smoked by everyone for doubting it, it turns out one of you dont even publish swfs!

[stedem]

Its not the fact we don't want to publish swf but about the new scripting in flash is just true. There doesn't changes much, the flash of now is not so much changed since the flash many years ago.

[grandpaw broon]

Yeah i know exactly what you mean, they are tying to beef flash up to be OOP this and design pattern that yet so long as u have a right click context menu, it remains an almost novelty item and why other developers in other communities kind of laugh at it.

There will be others no doubt who are deluded and insist flash can do more than ever before, and that may be true, but a snail does not gather pace just because it moved forward an inch at a time.

I mean Adobes business is to sell products, and are we all mugs who go out to spunk 100s on a software tool that literally remains the same version after version and to justify it, they come out with new terms like RIAs.

I have spent 100s on software, and books but more importantly, i have spent 100s of hours of my life relearning stuff that could have been done years ago just in a less structured way.

When i asked onm Flashkit months ago if AS3 was worth it, everyone insisted it was, im still struggling and physically see no gain for my efforts

[Pasquale]

Originally Posted by grandpaw broon

Im quite interested in more views, why do u feel like that?

I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, thats fair play, so it takes me a while to grasp concepts and learn how to apply them and its almost compulsive disporder for me to feel the need to keep learning in my spare time incase i fall off the tech market with outdated skills yet there aint much jobs out there with this in demand, i dont know what .NET really is but theres 10000s of .net jobs.

It comes as a massive surprise for both yourselfs to reply in this way, id have thought id get smoked by everyone for doubting it, it turns out one of you dont even publish swfs!

It's because I use flash for a completely differnt type of application.

I am an animator, so I don't need the functionality of AS at all. I just use it as a tool, because of its time line feature and drawing tools.

[grandpaw broon]

So is that what the vast majority of people use flash for? Animation only such as animated banners etc? Then there is a small community of AS developers trying to push the envelope?

[Pasquale]

Originally Posted by grandpaw broon

So is that what the vast majority of people use flash for? Animation only such as animated banners etc? Then there is a small community of AS developers trying to push the envelope?

No. It's the other way around. Barely any animators, and more developers. My use of flash doesn't require snazzy actionscript, and never will.

[McGuffin]

Originally Posted by grandpaw broon

Like, Adobe seem to have an on going spiral of learning a new language every 2 years, an old habits die hard. So i end up unlearning things i grew to only just get used to.. an the results truely do not differ much.

They do if you're pushing the programming language to any sort of limit. That's the way technology is, you either get complacent and end up losing out or you move with the bleeding edge and reap the benefits. I've been coding ActionScript since AS1.0, it's just one of those things. ActionScript won't always be changing so drastically so fast. The only reason the current changes are happening is because ActionScript was initially built to supplement to the design of sites with commands like gotoAndPlay(), etc but the market has demanded more.

I mean, when you look around the internet at flash sites, almost nothing has changed.

Most of the changes are coming with things like Flex. The changes occuring in Flash-based sites are back-end, you'd only notice the improvements in speed and perhaps feature-set, but why would you expect to see anything spectacularly new? It's not like AS2 was that crippled.

Why is there not direct hardware support?

Coming in the next revision of the Flash Player. Go to http://labs.adobe.com and get the beta.

The other thing, is why do adobe feel the need to close the right click menu? I mean, flash was build for interactive websites and presentations to begin with (well since 4 really) yet one of the most commonly used functions, the mouse buttons, are tampered with, just so people can zoom in and out and read that adobe flash player rules.

It isn't closed. You can have it execute custom functions and customize what's included. Adobe is smart to leave it up to the designer, rather than go against OS standards by hijacking the menu by default.

I have always felt somewhat claustraphobic in a flash application, i mean, if im looking for a new TV, an the company has a flash website for that TV, i tend to click out of it straight away and goto a review site because i know the flash site will be all bells and whistles and if there is a spec i want to compare, i probably cant copy and paste. Its almost like having a panel of buttons on a 747 but theres a layer of glass covering it, so only very specific things may be done.

Yes, because when a murderer drives away in a getaway car, I blame the car manufacturer and not the driver...

I suppose i woke up this morning, and the pursuit of feeling compelled to learn AS3 was almost lost because i cant honestly do anything more with it really than i could with AS2, i mean, its a bunch of hassle for almost no gain. If u show me a AS2 and AS3 site i wouldnt be able to tell the difference.

Honestly, you must not be doing much beyond the simple things. E4X is a freaking revolution in Flash XML, new extendibility through OOP all around, etc.

Adding salt to the wound is how another version is already in development and what will they do next? Add a couple of new operators, turn everything upside down and on its head inside out, yet retain the same functionality but call it AS4?

Highly doubtful. And I fail to see how AS3 is just a "couple new operators". They didn't change everything for the sake of change.

Im not hurting flash as i have always stood by it, but i guess i want somewhat transferable skills and not wasting my life learning and buying books for almost no change what so ever. We are still very limited after all.

AS3 will provide you more transferable skills than anything before. You can learn OOP principles and the syntax and capabilities are much more advanced and in-tune with the older, more established programming languages.

So is that what the vast majority of people use flash for? Animation only such as animated banners etc? Then there is a small community of AS developers trying to push the envelope?

And who do you think brings home the cheddar for themselves and for their companies?

^darkmotion: There's a large development community but not a lot of people push the envelope on the technology.

Sounds to me like you can't be bothered to learn AS3 because of a somewhat steeper learning curve (believe me, AS is still child's play next to something like C++). Why you would be happy with a stagnant and undeveloped AS2 is WELL beyond me. Every day I swear to the heaven's that I'm not able to do something (function overloading, for one) in AS that I would kill somebody to do.

[Pasquale]

MMmm. Well I'm definitely all for flash, but for what I do- AS has never done anything for me, because I just don't code

I'm still loving the breakthroughs and handy little gizmos people pop out from time to time to make life easier for us animators- like flash cams and things.

[BradLee]

I think you've got entirely the wrong attitude about programming. If learning new programming languages bothers or frustrates you, computer programming might not be for you.

AS3 was necessary. Anybody who tried to create any substantial programs in AS2 will tell you how awesome it is to be able to write in AS3 now. Finally I feel like Actionscript is acting like a "real" language. I know I'm not the only Flash developer that feels this way.

Programming languages change all the time. You've got to be able to pick up new ones and keep adapting, otherwise you'll be left behind (and without a job usually). You don't see many Fortran programmers around (if there are any, they'll be working for the government in a basement somewhere).

Programming languages are tools. What you need to know and understand are the concepts behind them. Data structures, oop, etc... these are the things to know regardless of what language they are implemented in.

Try to have fun learning new things, don't let change frustrate you.

[Templarian]

Yea, IMO if your trying to learn flash AS3 you need to remove the Flash IDE to get the whole picture... and I'll admit its a true pain to learn I just started 3 days ago and a lot of the simple things seem rly hard to do, but after a bit of coding you relize how much nicer it is to code in and how much better your stuff runs.

I love the structure of the classes and everything though it just makes it so simple.

[mathew.er]

About why is AS3 worth learning... the speed improvements could easily cancel out first 10 reasons you name against it. The way AS3 works now is more logical, structured and makes a developer feel more at home. It allows bigger things to be developed faster... though this could be a disadvantage on the other hand, where as JAVA, AS3 could be a pain to use for small to medium-seized projects.

I understand, that for people who are more designers, than developers it could be difficult to adapt and that the jump from AS2 to AS3 is larger than it was from AS1, but if all you need is gotoAndStop or loading a text file, nobody forces you to make the transition

E4X is a freaking revolution in Flash XML

Not quite, it has just become natively supported. Implementation of E4X was even in Flash 8's default mx.xpath package.

Every day I swear to the heaven's that I'm not able to do something (function overloading, for one) in AS that I would kill somebody to do.

Cheers.

[DanontheMoon]

TheSpork: You don't see many Fortran programmers around (if there are any, they'll be working for the government in a basement somewhere).