In 2007 flash could run 3d games, do shaders, have multiplayer, run physics manipulation, have 3d sound, do bitmap manipulation, socket programming, and had documentation built into the editor.
Even now html/J's can't do all of the things and most of the things that you can do, are not as fast. While browsers are stuck with legacies to uphold. Flash had no dom to worry about, untyped language (as3) or had css holding it back.
General argument was flash sucks because people make terrible content with it. Which is like saying I hate having hands because I trip things over.. so no limbs = no mess PERFECT.
In turn I think it helped push native apps. Since plain Js/html app just sucked in comparison when it comes to experience and capabilities.
Flash should have been open sourced. Hopefully with webgl and web assembly someone can step in and create something similar
I think the key thing to keep in mind is that Flash gave you all of that from one vendor in a coherent, easy to make use of experience. We can certainly do the same things with JS and the technologies we have outside Flash, but it takes a lot of mental work to stitch it all together. You have to know so many frameworks. You have to know the type of frameworks you're looking for to do `x`. And then there's a lot of performance tuning because something done through canvas isn't as fast as something done with the DOM, etc. Flash was gross but useful.
Even now html/J's can't do all of the things and most of the things that you can do, are not as fast. While browsers are stuck with legacies to uphold. Flash had no dom to worry about, untyped language (as3) or had css holding it back.
General argument was flash sucks because people make terrible content with it. Which is like saying I hate having hands because I trip things over.. so no limbs = no mess PERFECT.
In turn I think it helped push native apps. Since plain Js/html app just sucked in comparison when it comes to experience and capabilities.
Flash should have been open sourced. Hopefully with webgl and web assembly someone can step in and create something similar