Report from the Cloud
Yes a report from the cloudy murk that is the Flash and ActionScript development environment.
In a solar system Flashed and sunned on the rock of human affairs
Because, you see, the Flash and ActionScript development environment–let's call it the Flash Development Platform– is so multiple in languages, development tools, delivery platforms, 'enterprise solutions', and little guy gotchas–and the Flash IDE in CS4 and, to a slightly lesser extent, in CS5, is so crawlingly slow concerning code editing, compilation, and debugging–that even the little guy is forced to look outside the Flash IDE for coding and debugging tools that don't almost forbid creativity, because the CS4 and CS5 Flash IDE does, concerning editing code, compiling, and debugging it.
So much ado over the capabilities of ActionScript 3.0–and it is a marvelously powerful language for intermedia. For instance, it's possible to make performance instruments in which microphone data can be subject to analysis either by amplitude (volume) or by frequency distribution–or both–and the sound itself can be processed down to the level of the sample, altering the sound, repeating it, changing the pitch, filtering the sound on the fly, and reacting visually as well to these various analyses of the microphone data.
This sort of relatively granular and extensive audio capability is years ahead of, say, HTML. The much-vaunted HTML 5 audio API merely allows developers to create video-like controls for audio files embedded in web pages. HTML 5 audio capabilities are as bare-bones as they could possibly be. But, then, we're currently at Flash 10.1. Why wouldn't something that has gone through 10 full development cycles be miles beyond something that has undergone 5 full development cycles? Flash does roughly one development cycle per year. Let's say it takes HTML about 5 years to go from, say, HTML 4 to HTML 5. Do the math. That puts Flash about 25 years ahead of HTML. And that is a somewhat conservative estimate.
But, yeesh, getting at that amazing ActionScript 3.0 functionality and getting proficient with it is an incredible handful. Not so much the ideas as handful just the difficulties of the coding environment plus the multiple-tome volumes of 'basic ActionScript programming methodologies'.
But wait. There's more clouds. Consider the mysteries of AIR, Flex, and MXML. You see, Adobe is betting on two competing horses in their Flash-related development tools. AIR is an Adobe development platform that supports HTML+JavaScript+CSS+SQL+XML applications. Those nasty HTML 5 applications which have been the subject of a great debate concerning Flash vs. HTML 5. Such AIR applications can be deployed to the web, and play in the browser, or as standalone applications that do not need a browser; they can run on the desktop on their own. Or on a variety of hand-held devices. And Flash ActionScript projects can also be developed under the AIR platform to be deployed in the same ways.
Plus, they can be deployed to a variety of devices–including the iPhone. But Apple has forbidden Flash applications on its devices such as the iPhone and the iPad. So here we have more cloud. Development hindered and advanced in odd, competitive thrusts that seek to open development possibilities while also excluding the corporate competition's own advances, products, and developers from deployment and hence competition for hearts, minds, allegiance, and financial participation in the economy defined by, say, the iPhone+iPad user-base.
Adobe has decided that its development tools and platforms need to support both Flash applications and applications developed without Flash whatsoever. If Flash goes under, they still have the other horse. Even Adobe is developing with the possibility of the end of Flash in mind. Of course, Adobe would say
'No, you have it wrong–it's not a matter of improving odds of corporate survival by putting two independent horses in the race but, rather, a matter of developing platforms that take advantage of what both can offer either together or separately, at times.'
Uh, right. That's true. They would also point out that
',,,other development corporations, such as Microsoft, support quite a few programming languages, development tools, yada yada because the notion of a monolithic, programming language mo
noculture just is not feasible, desirable, practical, is not flexible enough to deliver the goods these days that need to be delivered across platforms. And even, on a given platform, requirements are diverse enough to necessitate the existence of multiple languages and, consequently, tools.'
Yes, they'd say all that. And it would be true. But, still, it comes as a bit of a shock to Flash developers to see the platform complicated–though broadened–in so dramatic a way. Several of the artists I've spoken with who use Flash are still using CS3, where ActionScript 2.0, so different from ActionScript 3.0, is the language of use, and the Flash IDE is the single development environment.
Have I entered at the end of the horse race?? Has Flash 'lost'? Well, let's just say that the Flash platform has been transformed into one in which complex applications can be developed–and that is where Adobe is putting the money into Flash. Into enterprise-level application development, not the sorts of things that artists have developed in Flash for years.
They didn't call it Babel for nothing.
Where does this leave artists, concerning Flash? Well, there are tools, such as Flash Catalyst, which are emerging. Catalyst promises interesting Flash projects with little or no coding. It's sufficiently new, however, that no one knows much about it! But wait–there's more. Catalyst is interoperable with Flash Builder, which is more a tool for the developers, the programmers, and a way for them to work (er presumably 'productively') with the designers. More enterprise-level tool design.
And let's not forget the third-party Flash development tools such as FlashDevelop (a code editor), FDT (a code editor + project management tool (+debugger in the 'enterprise' version)) and DeMonster Debugger (a run-time debugger). These third party products were made to compensate for the truly dreadful Flash IDE concerning the speed of code editing, compilation, and debugging. And to offer coding environments where one may do one's ActionScript, JavaScript, and MXML coding/debugging.
Let's just end this murky report from the billowing expansive clouds of Flash-related development by noting that Web development in the current, expanding, shifting seas of computer languages, methodologies, platforms, standards (and lack thereof), and whatnot is enough to choke an ox. And I haven't even talked about Flex or MXML. But I think I'll spare us both!
Say what you will of Director, but it was never uh lucky enough to get the full corporate development platform treatment and remains a tool largely for individuals working on projects, rather than corporate armies of developers and designers working with huge databases and so on. Which is to say it remains a tool that caters quite well to artists. At the expense of its continued existence, possibly. Ah, well, there we have 'progress'. Corporate progress. But the new learning curves are hell for artists.
You've heard the expression 'the outer rings of hell'. Well, if you visit the 'solar system' graphic linking this article to the “Adobe Flash Platform”, you see that the 'solar system' they depict is actually more like a business model than a solar system (or the Infernoesque rings of hell?). The outer ring consists of business partners that form a ring labeled by Adobe “Ecosystem”. The inner rings are labeled “Technologies” and “Run Times”. The diagram shows you your place in the 'solar system' that is the Adobe Flash Platform. Can't find your place in the solar system?????? Oh, well, that is unfortunate. Perhaps you have been banished to the very outer and, as yet, undepicted rings of this increasingly corporatized development platform. Don't tell me you don't want to write an app the size of FaceBook. Get to work on it you hideous shade. Write an enterprise solution, monetize your software, earn your place in the solar system that is the Adobe Flash Platform, iHell.
Enough for one night of this report from the cloud. Time to sleep. Where is my cloudy pillow??? Good night??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG. Somebody—–ANYBODY—–ANYBODY——-WAKE ME UPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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5 Responses to “Report from the Cloud”.
Thanks for this personal and informative report from the front lines, Jim! Hunker down, pass the ammo, and keep chucking the grenades!
Question: Will pieces created with Flash be still “readable” online 5-10-20 years from now, and why (or why not)? I have a few guesses, but I’d rather hear from the clouds…
When did you start using Flash, Alan? Is your early work still viewable? I’m guessing you started around 1999 or so. That’s 11 years of work, and I expect it’s all still viewable. And it will probably be viewable, one way or another, for at least another ten years, possibly twenty.
Beyond that, it’s hard to say. It depends on the viscissitudes and continued success of Flash.
Your question motivated me to add a new paragraph to the article, Alan:
“This sort of relatively granular and extensive audio capability [in Flash] is years ahead of, say, HTML. The much-vaunted HTML 5 audio API merely allows developers to create video-like controls for audio files embedded in web pages. HTML 5 audio capabilities are as bare-bones as they could possibly be. But, then, we’re currently at Flash 10.1. Why wouldn’t something that has gone through 10 full development cycles be miles beyond something that has undergone 5 full development cycles? Flash does roughly one development cycle per year. Let’s say it takes HTML about 5 years to go from, say, HTML 4 to HTML 5. Do the math. That puts Flash about 25 years ahead of HTML. And that is a somewhat conservative estimate.”
Flash has graduated to being a ‘high end’ tool concerning cutting-edge operations with media on the web. And it has bloatedly corporatized in becoming, say, a development platform for the creation of FaceBook-sized online applications.
Flash has changed quite dramatically in those 11 years, has it not? And it is 25 years ahead of HTML. That 25-year buffer is important to the continued success of Flash, I expect, so that it remains the preferred cutting-edge web development platform.
But the pursuit of that edge–which is also a chase to follow the money–involves a price. The platform becomes hideously complex and forbidding and is suited more to corporate enterprise than individual projects.
Thanks for that, Jim. And to add fuel to the fire, if you haven’t already seen this… http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/05/08/apple-is-developing-a-flash-alternative-and-has-been-for-almost-a-year/
Hey Jim, welcome to Flash iHell! I’ve been curving in the learning confusion of an AS3teroid belt in the obscure outer outer rings for a little while now. I was hardly fluent in AS2 in the first place but I do think AS3 is more logical, or consistent, or something… or maybe it’s just that programming itself is making more sense to me… I don’t know, but I’m told (I’ve read) that AS3 is more like other programming languages. So I’m rather curious about the possibilities of the XFL file format in relation to Alan’s question about Flash pieces being readable in the future.
According to Lee Brimelow, “The XFL file format is a way to represent a Flash Professional document as an XML-based, open folder of files.” (http://theflashblog.com/?p=1986). Does this suggest that if Flash eventually goes the way of the Dodo, then the open folder of XFL files will still be available to be translated into other programming languages? That is, assuming anyone would have the time and inclination to do the work.
You got grit, girl, tackling this as you have. I admire your grit. I’m tackling it too, and am like a flounder floundering almost frozen careening in those outer reaches with you.
O mi gawd. Another mystery. XFL???
I’ve had a brief look at the URL you posted about it. Interesting. They say that the new FLA is just a zipped version of this structure. I guess that’s so that the file structure of Flash projects is much the same whether you are using ActionScript or Ajax.
I have made a couple of very simple AIR apps using the extension for Dreamweaver CS4 (and presumably CS5) that is available. And it creates a DOMDocument.xml, amongst other things, when you create an Ajax AIR app.
ActionScript is indeed more like industrial-strength other programming languages. ActionScript has full OOP, is ‘strongly typed’, ie, when you declare variables you have to specify their type (this makes it possible to compile the code, rather than interpret it, and compiled code is faster). Also, there is no timeline and that sort of thing. Regular programming languages don’t have a timeline. All the files are in this sort of folder structure rather than the source code being in a complex single file like the FLA used to be.
Having all the code in individual files makes it possible for teams and armies of programmers to work on projects in such a way that different programmers work on different files. Rather than a situation where there is just one source file.