Adobe Flash Overbloated waste of time

[networker 0]

What is it with Adobe flash?The application is gigantic and for what?What amounts to a glorified javascript slideshow script really. I've built slideshows in javascript that could ofpassed as "flash" to the uninitiated. These slideshowsonly work with smaller images I found.If the images aretoo large the page doesn't load properly.That's the onlyreal advantage that adobe flash seems to have as faras I can see.The downloaded flash dll enables entire web pages tobe "slideshows". And flash is a big deal because they can show embedded movies in a web page?Big deal.What would I know though? I've never had a chance to use flash.I tried installing Adobe Flex Builder 3 only to find you needed.1 gig of ram!2 gig recommended. 1 gig of Ram? 2 gig recommended? Yet it only needs500 meg hard disc space.What a contradiction.That's ridiculous. What an overbloated piece of #$#$#Adobe flash and the like is. Maybe flash has certain image manipulation properties,but you could probably get these with many of the scores of free graphic software that is out there. I feel Adobe in general is a bit of a sham.That theyare just lucky. It's just my opinion. I think they are way over rated.

[CyberWizard 0]

Hmm... it is your opinion and it is wrong :PI think Adobe Flash is one of the most useful application today. As u can see, all the banners, advertisments, famous company's websites like Diesel, Nike, Adidas, all the intros to the websites are made in Flash. Almost every game online is made in flash. I don't know why your are so against Flash. But like you said, it is your opinion and nobody can change it

[hippiman 0]

Flash is a lot more powerful than it looks at first. I don't know how you could think that all it can do is slide shows and play video.Have you ever seen a flash game? Or YouTube? Or anything animated in flash? I'm pretty sure there are some whole cartoons that are animated just with flash.The main things people love about flash are how everyone has it installed already, the IDE (like flash MX or CS3) has a really easy to use interface, and the fact that actionscript makes almost anything possible.I have an internship right now where the software we're developing uses flash as the front-end. It was a lot faster to set up and be able to add effects to the GUI with flash than it would have been if we just used C#, which is the language the back-end is in.I've never really used Flex Builder, so I have no idea why it needs so much RAM. IMHO you should have at least 1 gig of RAM anyway. It's pretty cheap, especially if you really had the money to get Flex Builder.Adobe's not really a sham, but they are getting close to being a monopoly on graphic software, just because it has become the standard.GIMP can do a lot of the stuff Photoshop can, but you would have to learn a new interface, and stuff like that.Nothing else really comes close to what Flash can do, though, in a web browser. Java applets can do it, but it takes a lot longer to develop, and not as many people have Java installed. I don't think hardly anyone has the JMF installed to play video, so flash is winning so far when it comes to web-based stuff like that.And people are able to make some flash content free, if they know actionscript enough and they found one of the open source projects. So instead of having to figure out everything you'd need to do to make the java applet, and just hoping that everyone using the site will have java installed, they can just make whatever they're doing in flash.I think java should try making its graphics APIs better, and try making an IDE like flash uses, then it might even out their use a little.But flash is really powerful, if you know how to use it.

[buxgoddess 1]

Adobe flash has revolutionized the way the internet web works.The pages includes the interactive feature and back end scripts support making it a complete system.Also it supports other formats of text and data which makes them easily change their look and behaviour without being even aware of what is going on from the inside of flash file.

[rayzoredge 2]

I agree with OP that Adobe's applications are bloated beyond comparison. They probably virtually have the monopoly on professional web development, multimedia design, and publishing software, but there's a damn good reason why: the applications are pretty d*mn powerful, however bloated they might be.Along with the advantages of Flash that people have outlined above, you can't view the ActionScript or any source or component code of an SWF document (unless you use Flare or some other third-party program, in which it vomits out all of the code in one humongous mess), whereas anyone can rip your precious JavaScript off of your sites (unless it's contained in a PHP or some other document where it's programmed to output only what's shown and not reveal the inner workings of how it's shown).One problem with Flash, however, is that if you do decide to work with it and go the easy way out with utilizing components and other easy-to-add things, you definitely bloat your own Flash projects, which doesn't make any sense for web application (since viewers of your site will have to wait even longer to load up your Flash apps).

[Parubilla 0]

I don't know why are you so against it, Flash is a really useful application to create web, games, animations, even illustrations, and is the standard program everyone use and I think action script is not that hard to learn so that is a plus... One thing I do have to say about flash is because is the number one program to create all of these things, Adobe has gone a little bit to far with the pricing, all of the Adobe programs are really expensive, but you have to buy it because you need it, that's the sad part... and since there's no way you would buy another suite but the Adobe one, it's a scary thing to think about putting your hand in your pocket to buy those programs...

[networker 0]

I've learned something. I wasn't counting out flash. I justdon't know enough about it,and thought I'd give myhonest opinion so far, so as to get some feedback. Isn't action script almost the same as javascript?I may be naive,but the way I see it,couldn't many of the things that flash does, be done using javascript?Especially if there were a dll created for larger images?Something to make larger images load faster? The way I see it,also, Visual studio runs perfectly fine on my computer,is incredibly usefull and is my measuring stick againstother applications.That's how I tend to judge other applications.

[Nabb 0]

ActionScript and JavaScript are both based off the same language (ECMAscript I think). They are not the same.

Code execution in AS3 is considerably faster than programming in JS. A google search yielded this page (also note that Flash can perform at up to half the speed of native C/C++ code with the recent tool from Adobe labs called alchemy)). Flash has a lot more capabilities than JavaScript, such as being able to draw and attach images (movie clips) to the stage. Flash allows you to use vector graphics, which you can't do on the most common browser Internet Explorer without a plugin (and note that Flash is installed on about 99% of computers, while whatever plugin required for SVGs isn't.) Using Flash gives you the chance to protect your code from theft, and there are tools which will render SWF decompilers completely useless (well you can usually read the raw code, if that is going to be of any help), while using JavaScript means that anyone can steal your code.

Flash is commonly used to create web games. Play any game and you will see that these are much better than JavaScript games. For example I am currently creating a game in Flash, and from my experience in JavaScript it would be unnecessarily difficult to create the same effect in it. Flash movies can also be created, which are also of a much higher quality than frame-by-frame created JavaScript movies (and probably smaller in bandwidth consumption), and allows the developer full control over the interface rather than no control if one were to embed a media player in a browser (the same goes for actual videos, i.e. FLVs, for example Youtube movies).

Edited February 19, 2009 by Nabb (see edit history)

[novoAlias 0]

I've learned something. I wasn't counting out flash. I justdon't know enough about it,and thought I'd give my
honest opinion so far, so as to get some feedback.

I have recently played with both javascript (well, processing) and have quite alot of experience in flash and I would say, that Flash is the better one for web based applications. In my website I effectively used flash as a GUI with html and javascript to control the content. Flash has the ability to produce really impressive visual effects with very little effort, although some of the more recent effects are quite processor heavy. Flash is very visually orientated, which I like. And because it uses vector graphics the resulting files are tiny. I have never had a problem with adobe flash or photoshop unless I open 20+ files at once, I actually have more problems with songbird and firefox going top heavy but that is possibly just because of the way I use them. One thing flash does not do satisfactorily is display pure HTML (or RSS feeds), this is the reason I ended up using a flash GUI with an Iframe to achieve a lightweight and good looking interface.

My take is flash is a very powerful, general, tool that can do everything from pure animation (my friend used it for web animation as part of his course) to some quite advanced programming that does almost everything that java can do. There really is nothing that is in direct competition.

[Ash-Bash 0]

You are wrong O.oAdobe flash is one of the most used and one of the best programs used to day.Like in video players where would we be with out them.... like flash website's you wouldn't be able to view them if you didn't have it.Re think - Ash

[rvalkass 5]

Like in video players where would we be with out them....

Embedding the video using the correct HTML tags, updated in HTML5 to include a specific tag for videos, which display in the relevant browser plugin without any extra downloads or reliance on a proprietary and locked piece of software? I think I prefer this way than being forced to use Flash.

like flash website's you wouldn't be able to view them if you didn't have it.

Then whoever designed the site has been rather shortsighted with their design. Assuming 100% of people have the Flash plugin is a little stupid when making a site. A version of the site made in just HTML should also be available so people can actually see the site, so it wouldn't be a problem.

[ackotheadvertiser 0]

I tried to learn the flash language, action script and stuff, but I wasn't really good at it. I have tried to do some small animations, and some flash games by copying some tutorial codes, but nothing worked that perfect, I would of go like in the half from the project and stopped. Now I kinda feel sorry about it, but I cannot learn everything. But making flash animations and games is so awsome, because of the reason we can add them to sites.

[Ash-Bash 0]

For me learning flash language was hard.I am now trying to learn a few others from the tutorials on here, Youtube & Other forums.I have made a few programs that a lot of people have downloaded but Once I have learnt some new programming languages I can improve them a lot more and maybe post the download links on here.

[Veradesigns 0]

What is it with Adobe flash?The application is gigantic and for what?
What amounts to a glorified javascript slideshow script really.

I've built slideshows in javascript that could of
passed as "flash" to the uninitiated. These slideshows
only work with smaller images I found.If the images are
too large the page doesn't load properly.That's the only
real advantage that adobe flash seems to have as far
as I can see.The downloaded flash dll enables entire web pages to
be "slideshows".
And flash is a big deal because they can show embedded movies in a web page?
Big deal.
What would I know though? I've never had a chance to use flash.
I tried installing Adobe Flex Builder 3 only to find you needed.
1 gig of ram!2 gig recommended.
1 gig of Ram? 2 gig recommended? Yet it only needs
500 meg hard disc space.What a contradiction.
That's ridiculous. What an overbloated piece of #$#$#
Adobe flash and the like is.

Maybe flash has certain image manipulation properties,
but you could probably get these with many of the scores of
free graphic software that is out there.

I feel Adobe in general is a bit of a sham.That they
are just lucky.
It's just my opinion. I think they are way over rated.

I strongly disagree
Adobe Cs3 Flash is what makes a website a website, without it no ads, no flash menus , no fancy websites, no flash games, no flash videos, as you can see i can keep going forever, flash is what makes a website a grate website visit my page it shows what u got wrong the meaning is that without flash in my website its impossible to maneuver around my web(construction is for the meantime) im waiting to get my website up through Xisto.
THis is my website its is underconstruction

[Shirley1874 0]

Adobe Flash enrich the Internet users' experience when they are surfing on Internet. Do you know RIA? Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have some of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of proprietary web browser plug-ins, advanced javascript compiler technology, or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines. Examples of RIA frameworks that require browser extensions include Adobe Flash, Java/JavaFX and Microsoft Silverlight, whilst examples of RIA frameworks that make comprehensive use of JavaScript include GWT and Pyjamas.And Adobe Flash is the main development kit to develop RIA application. You should thank Adobe Flash, for Flash technique is a great technique, it enables your web content can be viewable on most operationg systems and web browsers. And thanks to Adobe Flash you can watch streaming video on the Internet via your web browser.Adobe Flash has much more adventures than I can talk about.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Shirley1874 (see edit history)