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  • From: Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>
  • To: cmccarthy1 AT nc.rr.com, "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Web Development Questions
  • Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:52:44 -0500

On Feb 8, 2005, at 8:50 AM, Colleen McCarthy wrote:
If someone who has been doing Web design and development for a while
can could give an opinion of how Flash allowed them to create better Web
pages I'd really appreciate it.

Flash-based websites are obviously a bone of contention. I should say at the outset that I make a living building Flash apps, among other things.

In the right hands, Flash can provide both functional and "experiential" benefits (unavoidably squishy, sorry). Certainly it provides serious eye candy on many sites, but I'll try to stick to functional benefits here.

I typically use Flash to build visual displays that can't be done (or would be a nightmare) using other tools--drag and drop selection and "assembly" of a product or data structure, vector-based views that scale and zoom, that kind of thing. (Note that this is very script-intensive, and not "out of the box" behavior.) This is very hard to match if the items you're interested in are inherently visual and configurable.

Flash also offers a lightweight, consistent platform for streaming audio and video (including real-time chat, with some server-side support). With a decent family of UI widgets, it can also be a lightweight client GUI for client/server apps--similar to a Java applet, but with less overhead (see Laszlo or the emerging Flex for some good examples).


Regarding the "purist" objections to Flash, some of these are legit and some are overblown IMO:

Flash is so widely included in modern browsers that it has arguably crossed the gap from "just another plugin" to mainstream browser technology. Where it's available, the Flash runtime environment is more reliable and consistent (across browsers and platforms) than the "standard" method of building dynamic web pages, called DHTML (HTML DOM + CSS + Javascript).

Yes, the Flash Player is missing or outdated on some flavors of Unix, and each site must decide how much this weighs into the choice of tools. (Hey, I'm a Mac user, so I sympathize.)

Comparing Flash to PHP, ASP, etc is kind of apples-and-oranges, since those are server-side languages. Flash needs a smart server to do many things, and that's a separate decision. Instead, think of Flash as a very nimble net client, which can be hosted in a web browser or distributed as a standalone app. Flash is wonderfully indifferent to your server-side technology; I often pair it with a Zope server and XML-RPC.

Accessibility in Flash is largely a matter of forethought, and taking advantage of its supporting features (exposing Flash UI components to assistive technologies, etc). It can be done, but it doesn't happen unless people take the time--just as with accessible HTML.

Hope this helps,

=jimA=

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jim Allman
Interrobang Digital Media
http://www.ibang.com/
(919) 649-5760





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