Why? This is how long it would take for a large enough percentage of web users to install that version of the FLASH runtime on their clients. In a previous life, I was a FLASH developer and you would always have to wait around 1-2 years before you could develop a Flash website in the latest FLASH version. Yes FLASH was on 95% of clients but which version did you have installed? ‘Oh but Flash was on 95% of clients so that’s not true’, I hear you shout. This has always been the case and anyone who thought otherwise is naïve at best. The fact is that you cannot control the web if you need a plug-in to run your product. This brings us up-to-date and back to the HTML5 vs. There aren’t many companies that can do that. While annoying all of their users by doing this, i.e., they couldn’t run flash websites or video, users still bought their products. This is when this discussion really kicked off. APPLEĪpple effectively banned plug-ins from its products. This seems to be a fact ignored by the current band of HTML5 evangelists. To date, around 40% of web browsers are nowhere near HTML5 compliant. ![]() If it isn’t on the client, then HTML5 won’t work. Effectively, this is the same thing as a plug-in. ![]() It is worth noting that HTML5 can only run in a supported browser that is installed on the user’s CLIENT (PC, laptop, tablet, mobile, etc.). There was a slight precursor to this which was the browser video playback chatter that everyone and their donkey had an opinion on too. It is only in the last couple of years with the hype around HTML5\JS that the HTML5 vs. HTML and JS have been around forever and have always been popular web tools because they are free and cross-browser compatible. This is an important point that most people don’t get and hence don’t understand why the current chatter about HTML5 vs. SL was a direct competitor to not only FLASH but ALSO FLEX. SL was released in 2007 but the first mature version arrived in 2008 with SL 2. SILVERLIGHT (SL)Īround about the same time as FLEX was gaining momentum and maturing (around 2006), MICROSOFT was building SL. This would be as an alternative to Java server pages (JSP) or ASP.NET. FLEX was used as the front end for business applications and charting type stuff. Most people don’t know ADOBE brought out FLEX for this purpose. FLASH was useful for animations and small scale web stuff but not Enterprise level applications. ![]() ADOBE (Macromedia) realised this and also realised Flash wasn’t up to the job. Notice the word CLIENT here as this will become important as we go along.Īs the years went on, people tried to push Flash to act more like business applications that you would normally build in. Background FLASH and FLEXįlash arrived on the scene many, many moons ago to add some pizzazz to the web, largely because HTML was limited and hence the experience was pretty mundane and boring.įlash is a plug-in that needs to be installed on the CLIENT machine running the browser. This article focuses more on Silverlight than other technologies but the principles are the same for these too. It also attempts to pacify the situation and explain why it doesn’t really matter. This article attempts to provide a bit of history on the subject. Even worse are the (non technical) tech journalists who write an article on this subject purely to boost their own exposure. Very rarely have I seen a balanced article or a writer that understands the concepts involved. I’ve heard it all in the last year or two. HTML5 kills off flash HTML5 kills off Silverlight HTML5 makes the dinner and does the ironing too.
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