Where is FLash heading?

Can I pick some genious's brains out there on what they think is the best thing as a web designer and developer to focus on fo rthe future? I love flash and would like to continue in this direction. Is it wise to focus on this as my future in this feild? I am guessing that it would because of the rise of web mobile. Any thoughts or comments?

Flash is cool, but its Adobe proprietary. Most of the world's web development is going towards free and open source tools.

Its good to know, but I would not make it the only think I knew.

Prolly it's just in the pan.

Well, they did make the rendering engin open source, and ActionSctipt 3 is based on the ECMAScript open standard. I read somewhere that ActionScript would actually become ECMAScript Version 4, but I can't find the article...

There have been a lot of revisions, but yes, the basic structure of both languages are the same. Adobe is involved in the ES4 drafting process. It looks like it will be a fantastic language to work in. I like AS3 as well.

Adobe can't release all of their tech as open source tomorrow. They have been very forthcoming considering how long they had been entirely closed source. The FLV format is open, the SWF format is open. FLEX is open, Adobe Air uses a lot of open technology including SQLlite, webkit, HTML/Javascript.

The big trend now is internet enabled desktop apps. Mozilla Prism and Adobe Air are the majors in that area. If you know flash, you can do Air apps, but you can also do them in HTML/Javascript, or a mix of the two.

You know what's really funny? What macromedia did with flash/shockwave was to essentially create a browser. It's just a browser within a browser. It's great that they're starting to be more open. i was hoping adobe would've made a competitive product instead of just buying out macromedia.

If it was your money would you spend it developing a clone that might be shut down for violating IP rights, or would you just buy the competition. Sheesh. Whatever happened to critical thinking.

Its been tried before. Sun expected Java to make operating systems obsolete, and browsers as well with applets.

M$ claimed that IE is the operating system.

Flash/flex is just an attempt to create yet another proprietary development world. They didn't start to open it up out of the goodness of their heart. They did because folks don't want to start into an obvious closed license trap.




Adobe has bought several companies to get their products. or perhaps a cynic would say to remove competition from the market. With many, Dreamweaver, CoolEdit, come to mind instantly, they have not improved the product since they brought it into their world.

Really, does the uspto have these "innovations" as filed patents? Does everything have to escalate into a flame war with you? Wiffle bats .... pffft.

With dreamweaver, they just got rid of their very own product adobe golive. Dreamweaver's still around. CoolEdit has some increased stability in adobe audition. Other than that, there's only a certain amount of features they can add to these apps.

I'm pretty much a cynic, but i was hoping the Not Done Here ethic would've made adobe at least try to come up with an alternative to flash/shockwave.

Sun pretty much screwed it up with announcing their intentions on taking over, and focussing on language constructs without providing users with a simple to the point IDE.

Back on to the topic. Flex/Air should be an interesting thing to watch. It won't be difficult to leverage skillsets from them for the more traditional forms of web programming. The only problem is convincing employers that.

I could see that coming a mile away. Open source is a great business model, and I support it whole heartedly, but being for open source does not automatically mean you have to be against proprietary tools. This automatic anti-corporate attitude so many take that leads them to suppose that anything done by a corporation, was never done for any good reason, is intellectually lazy.

For instance if you read the blogs of the people connected to these companies (such as Adobe but not limited to them) that are developing the software. They are just as passionate and interested in what developers want as the Mozilla, Apache or PHP developers are, if not more so in some cases. Many of those open source projects have the cooperation of corporate developers on behalf of their companies. Linux in particular has gotten assistance from IBM that has been invaluable.

Open source is not the only valid software business model.

I would say that the way the IE team has behaved and their public statements on their development strategies would arouse far more suspicion than Adobe's, yet it seems that one gets flamed if you dare criticize MS.

The idea that Flash, flex or Dreamweaver haven't improved in any way since they were bought is simply not true. I use some of these products quite regularly. I would also point out, that the difference in quality between a tool such as GIMP and Photoshop, show that though many times open source is a glowing example of the best way to achieve quality and usefulness, it isn't always so.

Adobe did try to develop a Flash alternative before acquiring Macromeida. It fell flat.

Yes businesses are in business to make money, they aren't charities. So what? I'm a little tired of hearing how that is somehow inherently evil.

What did adobe have as an alternative to flash?