Javascript Processing Engine
I have voiced a lot of disdain for the closed source proprietary slow resource wasting crap that is flash. Flash is not good for video playback (for a number of reasons everyone but google would admit too) its also quite dumb to jail images in flash containers - but both of those things are a common practice around the net (flickr, youtube) - both things will be a part of an ugly past once HTML5 hits the street and moves toward a 50% usage point. SVG, video, animation and audio tags are just too cool to pass up on as a developer - and its all open and standard and complient and such.
Yet there was one thing where flash was until recently considered the only viable option: browser based games and interaction projects. Well in the offline world there is a programming language called processing that is used to make games and physics simulations and interaction models and and and. Its a breed of its own when it comes to programming languages - quite easy to learn and follow and very powerfull in what you can create but unless you are a java fetishist there was no way to run processing stuff inside the browser.
Now with the new breed of browsers around the corner - those that will support HTML5 and have advanced Javascript engines that support the canvas element - its is possible to use the processing language inside javascript with the javascript processing library. Just check out the demos (you might have to use a nightly build of your favorite browser to see the demos working) and see the potential. I did test them with the latest WebKit nightly and all demos are extremely smooth fluid and amazing. With these there is absolutely no excuse to use flash anymore. I will be surprised to see one major website with any kind of flash content in three years - mark my word. Javascript and HTML5 and SVG are going to be the solution to all your pain very very soon - and as a good side note it has to be said that there will be so much kick ass content that people with internet explorer will want nothing more then to upgrade to a browserto something modern (and I do not think there is any way for MS to catch up to either the firefox or the safari or the chrome javascript engine and make HTML5 and SVG available in any amount of time).
Comments
I agree.
I'd add Opera to the list of modern browsers. It's the browser with the best SVG support just to mention one thing.
Posted by: stelt | 9.12.08 16:29
Thanks for your comment, the reason why I have not included Opera is that I have made the decision to not support that browser as webdesigner until they are as standard complient as FF and the WebKit engine. I have no resources to write browser specific hacks for a browser that has 1% market share at most. If you have a browser that is that low in market share you better do everything in your might to make it as standard conform as the rest of the pack if not even more - other then some of the interface novelties Opera for me has not much to give. As said I give it another look at one point - but until then they better get their act together and work on this rendering engine. And no SVG support sucks in Opera - at least it did not even 8 month ago - I did a test of all browsers and made an SVG test with them and the only browser back then that was capable of handling even the most simple SVG graphic tasks was Safari - with Opera next and then Firefox (which was nearly unusable). Again nothing personal but unless I am using something extensively I am not commenting on it or include in lists that reflect my experience.
Posted by: fALk
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10.12.08 11:31