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Old 04-18-2003, 11:01 AM  
sleepingjeff
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 13
Just putting in my two cents on the topic of Flash use, as opposed to this site in particular...

I've been doing Flash development for going on 6 years now. Like any medium, it has its strengths and weaknesses. But before you blame the plug-in, take a look at the development of web content in general.

Can someone create a web page using only html and standard graphics (.GIFs, .JPGs) that takes forever to download? Yes. How about a page that looks horrible? Yes. How about a page that has unintuitive or annoying navigation? Yes.

When you see a site like this, do you think "Sweet baby Jesus, html and graphics are the scourge of the Internet as we know it!"? No, you don't. You think "Man, whoever made this page is a complete moron."

So why do people immediately blame Flash itself for sites that simply implement it poorly or inefficiently? It's likely due to the fact that not everyone knows enough about Flash to determine what is at fault, whereas most net-savvy people can tell when an image is too big in an html-only page. As a professional developer, I can tell you the fault lies nowhere but in the developer's hands. Slow load times, slow animation, annoying interfaces/behaviors, all the developer's fault. Other than the minor inconvenience of downloading the plugin (which, by the way, has an average 93% worldwide browser penetration rate with Flash 5, and even higher with older version), there really is no way you can blame the platform itself for anything.

Am I a Flash or Macromedia evangelist? No. I'm someone who knows how and when to use the media, and when it will have the most impact. Adult sites CAN benefit from Flash, as much as any industry that is visually-oriented, but the trick (as with any medium), lies in its implementation.
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