3cPlatform

Why Flash Sucks

Let’s start with the Flash apologists. Whenever I say “Flash sucks” somebody points out that it doesn’t, but that some Flash developers truly suck and don’t know how to use it properly (and I know somewhere in Oregon, or Europe or wherever in the world he is right now, my old friend Weszt probably wants to kick me for saying that).

Although Flash was written by programmers, as a programmer sometimes you wonder. Action script, as the name implies is a script language that has tried to become sort of an object oriented programming language but one of the most confusing programming and debugging tools to work with. If you have any arguments crank out an interface between flash and your web page, pass some data back and forth and ohhh yea the kicker, don’t let Flash cache the data you are loading so each time the user gets new data from your XML file.

For these reasons and many others we say Flash should be limited to widgets and possibly “modules” – where it can be remarkably effective - rather than used as the platform on which the website stands. Adobe should market it as such and get away from thinking it as a programmers tool or do something to make it one.

To sum up, here are 10 reasons why Flash tends to suck:

• You need a plug in. No plug in, no access.
• Cached SWFs
• Getting data from your site/database is PIA
• Loading screens… 16%... 27%... 39%... aaargh.
• World of weird interfaces. Did the designer drop an acid before going to work? Like crazy, man.
• Gives web standards the bird. Then kicks the ‘back’ button in the ass.
• More animations than the Disney Channel.
• Mobile devices (especially the iPhone) and Flash do not send one another Christmas cards.
• Accessibility, what accessibility?
• Search engines hate Flash. No really, they still do.