Comments on: 100% Flash = Bad For Business

By: Inxentas

Inxentas — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:22:13 +0000

So, here we have another list of outdated reasons why Flash is bad. I agree with Mathew on this: there are no bad technologies, there are only bad developers. Unfortunately, a lot of Flash developers are actually designers by heart, so the majority will probably suck at proper OOP or performance management, and do little else with the technology then building simple but goodlooking IDE projects.

Site intros and splash screens once were valid reasons to hate Flash… back in 1995. Decent Flash devs avoid such concepts nowadays, and either embrace SWFAddress for deeplinking or write their own SEO solutions. While I believe Actionscript 3.0 to be very adequate technology to build websites with, it truly shines when building real applications that are more then a collection of pages.

It all comes down to making smart choices, when and how to use Flash. Actionscript 3.0 simply has native features CSS / HTML / Javascript do not, and vice versa. Aside from that, it’s a strongly typed programming language while Javascript is prototype based and HTML is a markup language. To me that means this is still an apples/oranges deal.

By: SEO Process

SEO Process — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:30:32 +0000

Mostly true!!! you are right, a business oriented website especially when intentions are to grab most of the traffic and business through internet, organic SEO or search engine marketing.

By: Uli

Uli — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:50:56 +0000

Mathew,

you’re right on many points. Clearly, the Internet has rapidly matured over the last 18-24 months – making many of Oleg’s points moot. As you correctly point out, it’s mostly a developer’s fault for generating a poorly accessible and search-engine-unfriendly site architecture.

By: Mathew Ngugi

Mathew Ngugi — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:29:22 +0000

Flash Requires Bandwidth: Not true. Its a matter of approach and technique. A non-flash web page with a 100k graphic will take as long to load as a flash web page with the same 100 K graphic. While, many flash developers take the counter-productive approach of embedding most of a website’s content into a single SWF file (thus requiring everything to preload prior to anything being actually visible) a smarter, more seasoned developer will opt to have more content load / stream when requested by a user and not prior to the whole website loading.

Disabled Back Button:
Again, purely a matter of technique and approach. It is possible to fully enable back-forward navigation from a browser with actionscript / php

Flash Ignores Users Needs
Not true: DEVELOPERS ignore user needs. don’t blame the tool for smith’s failings

Problems with Third-party Flash Developers:
Challenges faced when dealing with unscrupulous specialists are not unique to web development in Flash. Try tweaking the work that goes into a moderately complex data-driven website and you’ll realise that either way, unless you are skilled enough to do it yourself, you are the mercy of the contractor.

Same applies to your mechanic, plumber, electrician e.t.c

Search Engines do not like Flash

Search works seamlessly with other web technologies: HTML, PHP, ASP e.t.c all which can be used to workaround any challenges regarding search engine visibility

What is Flash Really Good For?
Creating unique user experiences: graphic user interfaces that aren’t restricted to grids, tables, layers or positioning calculations inherent in most technologies, that confront a developer trying to fashion a click-point interface, whether for web or desktop.