You may be a flash developer or a flash hater or an evangelist, or a regular person who has nothing to do with flash whatsoever. I am sharing this , as i see too much of “Flash must die !” on the web. From Apple to Microsoft to every other guy, who possibly can, is taking a stone at Adobe Flash. From being called “buggy” to “dying technology” its taking it all, without complain.Dear reader , please take 5 minutes to read this first and then get back to what you were doing. Every second is a character , a minute makes a word and few words makes it your day.
The Flash Philosophy: – Why flash rocks the internet
In 1999 American science fiction-action film was directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski called the Matrix. The matrix was deeply engineered with concepts from varoius sources by the Wachowski brothers. Many of you will recall matrix as the movie for special effects never seen before. But the actual matter lays beneath. The Matrix was heavily inspired by The Hindu Religious Book – SrimadBhagavadgita
There in , Lord Krishna explains to prince Arjuna, that he should not be afraid to fight this holy war. He should not feel sin in killing his brothers , uncles and all, for they are all unreal, and in dimension of time they are already dead. This very world that we live in is unreal in every aspect. And the only proof we have of its existence is the feedback we receive through various perception inputs , signalling our brain to believe in the reality that is not. He explains about Maya (the Sanskrit term for illusion.) a clever combination of perfect graphics + interaction system that makes you like it more everyday.
Unless sought after, you will see similar is the nature of Flash + Actionscript and why it is so popular. Consider , while playing a billiards game on the web. What if the ball as and the stick and the motion, did not respect laws of physics ?? would you enjoy the game in the same way ?
My brother is a Rheumatologist. Last year when he was in Calcutta for a conference on pain management in Arthritis , i was asking him about what the conference was all about. He then explained to be, how the concept of Matrix again comes to play. The solution to extreme pain in body is not pain killers or therapies (at a extreme level). Its the neurological network in the body that carries the data of Pain to brain for analysis and interpretation. Hence, if the neurological connection is broken, brain can no longer perceive pain.
For years now flash has made it to users desktop, because of the seaming less experience that it can build, porting real world experiences into easy access of the web media.
Developer’s perspective:
From developr’s perspective, programming in actionscript along with being able to manipulate the graphics with hand, allowed the developer to be in god’s seat. Hence being able to create the illusion first hand having a clear understanding of how it happens.
Example:
A developer working on core oops for more than 3 years my have had difficulty clearly explaining the concept of class and how 2 objects created from same class use up less than 2 times the class’s memory by sharing common attributes.
However a developer dealing with actionscript can draw a circle.. convert to movie clip, and there you are he creates first class. Next he pulls 5 copies of the circle movieclip on stage and we have instances. Finally crtl + enter to see how much memory they take up…and you will get it :). Simple enough.
User’s perspective:
Every human carries the sense of perception deeply in him/her. Answers why, even the most mature of people would bend sideways when a car is turning in Need for speed carbon.
Flash has for years provided a connectivity to that sense of perception, by being able to simulate real-world in every possible way into the digital workspace. when i say this .. I clearly demark Flash from Flex /Silverlight etc.
Flex and Sliverlight are similar and none of them is what Flash is. RIA must be a space to fight for, but its the last thing that affects users. What turns their head, is the magic of carousels, spring actions of the billiard stick and lots more. Things like that which makes them feel from within, by colors, interactivity,responsiveness are the only candidate of user experience. Even today its The magic of “click to blow ” candles on a birthday cake, embedded in ecard, that brings smile to the face of a consumer more than any thing else.
Flash is my mind-space is a philosophy. That lets the action-scriptor become an artist and draw on the canvas, his heart out with nothing but 100% creativity + code. In past 4 years i have seen designers migrate to programming as they could understand programming better just working with Flash for a month or so.
Example: “ programmer the artist ”
The only technology that has made a clear join between the code world and the graphics world in the most seamless way possible is the – Flash technology. And with JavaFX, Silverlight, Flex (without flash) etc i believe “that” is missing. Its not at all in Wipe, Fade, Zoom and videos and and but rather … in that teddy bears ,hugging smiley and jumping balls in e cards and games that tend to make your day even in the rush hour.
Whether you develop RIA on web ,on desktop or on mobile platforms, users will always pour in, whenever the emulation of real-world, principles are found. I program in Actionscript, PHP, .Net and even Java sometimes, but what dives me in , is this level of understanding that flash creates.
Here is a little experiment i was trying out this week. Let me know if you like it:
[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://flashvisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/birthday_Secure.swf” width=”400″ height=”300″ targetclass=”flashmovie” menu=”false”]
[/kml_flashembed]
Adobe flash has always been, and will continue to be the most intriguing and engaging technology ever made in the history of computers. The capability and expressiveness of the technology has nothing to do with how it performs on different platforms. As a bottom line the key to a good web platform will always be the ability to excite user senses with a perfect combination of graphics and interactivity which today is only possible in – Adobe Flash Platform.
