FireFox SVG and Flash
I was just glancing over the source code of the upcoming FireFox release which will support SVG and thought I'd express an opinion here which is granted, a little bit over the top and begging for flames, but nevertheless could be interesting:
Much of the Slashdot crowd does not like Flash, they have some valid but then also highly emotional reasons. I am always amused that when anytime there is a post about Flash on Slashdot SVG is mentioned in the same breath explaining that it will kill Flash and that Flash is simply evil. (And I do not even want to start about their applauding of AJAX which has essentially the same drawbacks as Flash when it comes to accessibility. What a bunch of hippocrates.)
The bad reputation these days comes mostly because Flash animations are used for advertisement pretty much everywhere (I hope the 'Skip Intro' days are somewhat over). Well, here is some news for you: If SVG is ever to become dominant in any way, advertisers will use it the same way as Flash right now. Even worse, since SVG is supposed to be tightly integrated into the DOM of the browser it'll be in theory possible to design HTML pages that will simply not display correctly if SVG or JavaScript is turned off. Advertisers don't care about technology itself, they simply pick the thing with the highest reach and will want to make sure that you can not get around not seeing their 'messages'.
I also expect that once FireFox has SVG support, advertisers will use this instead of Flash if the Flash plugin can not be detected. Ironically Flash might actually help you here. FlashBlock tells the browser that the plugin is there, but displays it own static image instead. So installing Flash and FlashBlock will probably allow you to get around this. The last thing I personally want to see is that the Flash authoring tool allows you to export SVG animations, it would be abused for certain. ;-) There are simply still no professional SVG authoring tools out there which support animation in a decent manner. But all of that is really a personal opinion.
That brings be to another fact which is still not understood by the Slashdot crowd: Flash is not simply about vector graphics and media capabilities. What's much more important is the term Macromedia now uses which is the 'Flash Platform'. One of the most important parts of this is the dedication we have to be backwards compatible. Create once, run everywhere and update the platform to gain new capabilities without breaking old content. This is extremely important and one of the reasons Flash is even considered as an alternative for development at all despite all its shortcomings.
Looking at this post really makes this point I think. Every SVG library on this page has different quirks. While Flash is certainly not perfect in that respect, how would you like it if colors of your content suddenly looks different depending on what machine or browser you are on? Not quite a value proposition IMO. Welcome to the world of open standards without appropriate reference implementations everyone can use. This almost killed SVG.
I think my next blog entry will be about 'alternative' platforms. Although I hate to say 'alternative' since I do not see them that way. A lot of work is waiting for us on this front.
Much of the Slashdot crowd does not like Flash, they have some valid but then also highly emotional reasons. I am always amused that when anytime there is a post about Flash on Slashdot SVG is mentioned in the same breath explaining that it will kill Flash and that Flash is simply evil. (And I do not even want to start about their applauding of AJAX which has essentially the same drawbacks as Flash when it comes to accessibility. What a bunch of hippocrates.)
The bad reputation these days comes mostly because Flash animations are used for advertisement pretty much everywhere (I hope the 'Skip Intro' days are somewhat over). Well, here is some news for you: If SVG is ever to become dominant in any way, advertisers will use it the same way as Flash right now. Even worse, since SVG is supposed to be tightly integrated into the DOM of the browser it'll be in theory possible to design HTML pages that will simply not display correctly if SVG or JavaScript is turned off. Advertisers don't care about technology itself, they simply pick the thing with the highest reach and will want to make sure that you can not get around not seeing their 'messages'.
I also expect that once FireFox has SVG support, advertisers will use this instead of Flash if the Flash plugin can not be detected. Ironically Flash might actually help you here. FlashBlock tells the browser that the plugin is there, but displays it own static image instead. So installing Flash and FlashBlock will probably allow you to get around this. The last thing I personally want to see is that the Flash authoring tool allows you to export SVG animations, it would be abused for certain. ;-) There are simply still no professional SVG authoring tools out there which support animation in a decent manner. But all of that is really a personal opinion.
That brings be to another fact which is still not understood by the Slashdot crowd: Flash is not simply about vector graphics and media capabilities. What's much more important is the term Macromedia now uses which is the 'Flash Platform'. One of the most important parts of this is the dedication we have to be backwards compatible. Create once, run everywhere and update the platform to gain new capabilities without breaking old content. This is extremely important and one of the reasons Flash is even considered as an alternative for development at all despite all its shortcomings.
Looking at this post really makes this point I think. Every SVG library on this page has different quirks. While Flash is certainly not perfect in that respect, how would you like it if colors of your content suddenly looks different depending on what machine or browser you are on? Not quite a value proposition IMO. Welcome to the world of open standards without appropriate reference implementations everyone can use. This almost killed SVG.
I think my next blog entry will be about 'alternative' platforms. Although I hate to say 'alternative' since I do not see them that way. A lot of work is waiting for us on this front.
posted by Tinic Uro at 4:39 PM
11 Comments:
Howdy, Tinic... let me get some marshmallows, it might get a little warm here.... ;-)
There's a lot of good in the SVG format and the people who argue for it, I think -- a vector description in XML is helpful, and people are creating useful work with the technology today, particularly where the audience has a controlled configuration.
Slashdot has, I think, more of a balanced conversation these days... there are many pragmatists as well as many evangelists there.
If Firefox performance is deemed acceptable*, then what might happen? Advertisers won't retool for that minority, even though it's an influential minority. Look at the AJaX phenomenon: the ability to request XML was available for years in the browser of the masses, but the technique only became popular once the browser of the elite achieved it (Firefox). I don't know if that works the other way around....
* Here's current Firefox SVG status on the spec's constructs:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/status.html
I definitely agree with you on the Platform angle as being the trump to debates on specific clients or specific servers... the coordinated cooperation among the elements will be the key difference.
(I'm greatly enjoying reading your writings here, by the way... thanks! 8)
jd/mm
I felt a sudden disturbance on the web, as if millions of heads exploded.
Ah... you tried the common sense trick with the Slashdot "crowd".
I know this might be kind of a trollish posts, but 1) Slashdot doesn't matter and 2) Slashdot has at best 5% of readers who can actually look at the big picture and understand any concept that is more complicated than "Company X is teh debil!!11".
I've had less problems explaining why a website should run on Flash 6 or later 7 to non-tech-savy customers than you will have explaining that Flash is not about intros or ads to so called "computer nerds".
Most of those people know just enough to be dangerous in terms of making "computer decisions" for their family and spreading FUD around and you can't do anything to change their stereotypical way of thinking. Macromedia would be much better off advertising the Flash Platform with the general public, than try to explain it to Slashdot geeks.
Having looked at the SVG rendering comparison, all I can say is - scary.
The very reason Flash was adopted with such enthusiasm by developers was the consistency across browsers and platforms at a time IE4 vs. NS4 war was in rage (yes, I use Flash since version 2).
Right now Flash is pretty powerful platform, although unfortunately still without the recognition it deserves among developers.
Will SVG or XAML kill Flash? For better or for worse this will depend mostly on Adobe's strategy.
Actually, I would like the Flash IDE to be able to output SVG - I think both technologies have their place.
As for Slashdot, sigh. As a whole, the community's views can be described as:
Google = Apple = Java = Good
Microsoft = Flash = Bad
First let me say I totally agree with you re slashdot/svg.
Second let me applaud you for the candid writing on flash. seriously, kudo's to you sir.
Lastly, I have to take issue with your statement that "One of the most important parts of this [flash platform] is the dedication we have to be backwards compatible."
All I've been reading about flash8's new "security policies" http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mesh/archives/2005/08/new_flash_8_pla.cfm seem to contradict this statement in some profound ways.
I could be mistaken, or simply short-sighted but some of the newer flashplayer security features seem pointless and silly. Im (obviously) speaking of the network access warnings. Id be interested to hear your take on why this is a good thing (if you think it is).
Sorry about this but a member is desperate. Its a Dreamweaver problem can anyone here help at all..?
The memebrs post/message on the forum:
"I know that SVG is just a simple textfile. I can open it with dreamweaver in the code view. But I want dw to give me a simple syntaxhighlighting for svg. s svg is just xml, can't I tell DW to use the same syntaxhl for svg as the onr for xml?
cheers,
seb
"
Thanks for any help at all with this.
Kate.
SVG in Firefox is nice. This won't hurt Flash because it will never ever be in IE.
"it (SVG) will never ever be in IE"
haha. never-ever say never-ever!
btw, how's the asap 3D going?
(j/k Florian. i'm a big fan! ;O)
seeing Flex2 sporting a pseudo canvas command gives me deja-vu visions of All Our Base r belong to Them(MS). imo the key thing that should tip it either one way or the other will be nothing more techie than 'right-click view-source' yet MM deliberately holds this in reserve.
but as the battle is moving towards adaptation on next-gen devices (console/portable/cell/pda/sci-etc) and the browser wars also fragment, there'll be room for a lot more Players, quite literally!
hippocrate
a box to keep hippopotumuses in
;-P
I haven't done any flash, and was pretty annoyed when it first came out and it was used mostly for things that don't need flash.
These day I enjoy flash for IT demos.
I guess my only problem with Flash is that it's a plugin. If IE would ever implement it natively then I think you would see flash dying out fairly quickly.
Ugh..My last sentence should say "If IE would ever implement SVG natively, flash would probably die out".
Looks, like I'm a few years too late on this discussion, but anyway...
I don't think that the use of Flash for ads or its origins as a 'skip into' technology is the core of why some developers dislike Flash. Rather, I think developers (especially developers belonging to the slashdot crowd) dislike Flash because it reeks of anti-standards, binary only, proprietary doesn't-fit-with-the-rest-of-your-tools technology.
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