happily theres a flash developer going round ahead of us throwing up new ones faster than we can rank the last one, and not discussing the “i want it at the top of google” issue with the client until they realise that it’s not “at the top of google”

& long may that continue :)

I think more of a case-by-case analysis would tell you if flash sucks or not for the intended purpose.

yeah, but clients are generally stupid … ;)

I don’t understand you enough:

“I can’t parse it”
Because it’s compiled landuage, like Java. But nothing stops you from write your AS parser. Especially in AS3, when Flex goes fully open source. There are Java classes for compile AS/MXML. With AIR now, it’s “just” porting code from J to AS;)

“decode it”
www.buraks.com/asv ?

“hack it”
http://haxe.org/hxasm

“improve it”
Just like JS for eg. But you still have powerfull base in native code, that allows you to write SQL, or FTP libraries…

“extend it”
How extend refers to improve?

From Flash Player view SWF is realy close format: you cannot add your opcodes, etc. I don’t know Java but it’s probably the same here: you cannot do more than VM allows you.
From SWF file view: it’s really open and clear format: almost like HTML, only in binaries. You have tag hierarchy, clear structures, and everything is explained in specs…

regards
Maciek

SWF specification for Flash Player 9 SWF and FLV files were released about a week ago.
http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/

SWF specification for Flash 8 is available for almost 2 years now.

If you need to take a look under the hood - Flash parsing engine Tamarin is available freely at Mozilla’s developer repositories
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

I’m a developer myself. I code in HTML, PHP, Ruby, Python and AS2 / AS3. Flash has at the moment the most powerful client side scripting language having the biggest reach (2.3 billion computers) (Yes, and JS has ugly browser incompatibilities).

I also don’t agree with the way you compare things, best HTML sites with worst Flash examples? Is that right? Did you try to find any worst HTML sites just to see how ugly it can get?

One thing that really disappointed me is that most of the people regard flash as “large files, slow loading”. It really depends on developers and most developers use predefined components or video elements in their designs that increase the swf size. Laziness? Maybe.

I build components myself so the output file even for a large portal never reaches 200kb (graphics included).

I don’t want to get into a discussion on FLASH vs HTML, but just try to think of flash as a tool to do business - it’s really what it’s all about. With it you can create stunning visuals, interactivity, and integrate media. All faster and easier than other languages.

Client’s love it.

I’m really glad to hear you like(d?) my blog, and I actually agree (mostly) with this post. My goal when I wrote my Flash post was not to piss people off. Unfortunately, the comment thread has degenerated to name calling and other flames. Maybe an actual discussion will develop here.

If some of the people who read my post title and immediately got pissed off took a moment to actually read what I wrote I think they’d find that I never said that Flash had no uses, and was a worthless technology (ok, maybe I was a little bit over-dramatic, but it was only for effect). My biggest concern has to do with the closed specification for the SWF and FLV file formats. I’d like to repeat the sentiment from a comment I posted earlier today. I absolutely sympathize with Flash designers. CSS/XHTML is no good for cross-browser pixel perfect graphic design. All I’m asking is that designers put themselves in my shoes. As a developer, Flash is no fun. I can’t do anything with it. I can’t parse it, decode it, hack it, improve it, extend it, etc. As I’ve said several times now, what I would like to see is an open spec file format that gives both designers and developers what they want.