[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash

[Erik Mattheis]

Deke's attempt to position himself as a Flash expert really got under 
my skin, I wrote an angry response and decided not to send it cause I 
realized I was just angry.

But there's still some mis-information he provided that hasn't been 
corrected, so for the benefit of anyone that believed his lies, here 
is a G-Rated and abridged version (I took out my unsubstantiated 
phrases like "ignorant know-it-all who probably couldn't design his 
way out of an open bag of generic kitty-litter" - now that I've 
settled down I'm sure Deke is an excellent designer and is only 
ignorant about Flash) ...

At 11:26 AM -0400 4/20/01, deke wrote:
>The latency and incompatibility issues, though, are Flash's

There are no "latency" issues with Flash. As I understand packets, 
they don't care what types of data they contain.

Flash is the MOST compatible way to deliver page specified fonts, 
page specified layout, MP3 audio, and ... uh, well vector graphics. 
Here is some interesting info: 
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/

At 9:55 PM -0400 4/19/01, deke wrote:
>I don't notice a whole lot of flash at eBay or google.
>
>You suppose it's because those folks have a clear vision of what
>they are trying to accomplish with their websites, and don't want
>Flash presentations to divert users from actually *entering* their
>websites?

It's not because the pages would load too slow. eBay and maybe Google 
to a lesser extent, would load faster if they were done in Flash. A 
Flash movie can download only the content which needs to change - 
keeping everything else right where it was, or maybe moving it to 
accommodate the new page layout.

They certainly have good reasons for not using Flash, but it has 
nothing to do with technical limitations of Flash.

>And that's only because I already *have* a Flash plugin. The folks
>that don't? They have to download the plugin, and close their
>browser in order to install it.

Wrong.

>It takes four minutes to find out the viaduct is a furniture sales rep.
>It takes five minutes to find out that turbonium has a turbocharger,
>and five valves per cylinder.

You're saying every website must be accessible and easily 
understandable to all web users and that the aim of every website is 
to quickly convey information as clearly as possible. If that's what 
you belive, maybe Flash isn't too useful in your world, but you 
should know that your version of the world is still in the primal goo 
era.

The end of the VW site (turbonium.com) isn't to give the visitor 
information about a car ... that's what vw.com is for ... 
turbonium.com tries to get visitors from a certain demographic to BUY 
a car ... I'd venture to guess that you've puzzled by print ads in 
which you have to look at a small amount of tiny writing to 
understand what the add is for ... guess what - that ad worked on you 
... anyway, if you're thinking anything else other than: "Oh, gee, I 
get it now," you need to search the web for "branding" or "brand 
identity".

All this "usefulness" talk aside, there are tons of (even poorly 
designed) Flash sites that millions of people have fun visiting. How 
could you be down on that?
-- 
- Erik Mattheis

http://gozz.com/
(612) 827 3963