Flash vs HTML5
The battle between Flash and HTML5 has been heating up lately. There's a lot of debate not only by the people who know what goes into Flash and HTML5, but also from the general public.
You can't really surf the web without catching an argument about how Flash is bloated and overall crap and that HTML5 is the savior of the interwebs. Gizmodo, Crunchgear, and Endgadget are just a few sites that talk about the subject. However, now you have Apple going head to head with Adobe in the last few months. First when the iPhone came out, it was annoying that they didn't allow Flash on it. However, most people forgave Apple because they figured that, well, it's a cell phone and other manufacturers make the rules to govern their phones, why not Apple? Then Apple rolls out the iPad. (side note, I've played with one and I still think it's an oversized, overpriced iPod Touch.) Anyway, the iPad doesn't support Flash. Rather, Apple is trying to push their codec, H.264. They've been using it for the last few years to encode video files for the iPod Touch and iPhones. It's a good format, but hell, there's better out there. So, here's the disturbing thing; Apple's show of obstinance is actually winning them ground! You've actually got website owners willing to ditch Flash just so their site will work on that POS iPad. I find that utterly rediculous! Why should we, the web developers bow to Apple's wishes? Personally, I don't necessarily like Flash en masse. It has it's merits in certain situations, though. However, when one company is trying to bend the rules to their favor, that's when we should all stop and take stock of what's going on here. I mean, rather than everyone bowing to Apple, why not push back and say, "nope, we're not going to give in to your closed system".
Okay, I'm sorry, I can tend to rattle on and I have a few gripes with Apple lately so, I'll try to keep on course.
Anyway, like I said above, Flash has it's merits. Personally, I don't like building entire websites out of Flash. Primarily because they can't be read by search engines and therefore it's much more difficult to correctly optimize them. I think HTML5 is great and if you've seen some of the demos out there, it's really impressive. Heck, never mind the demos, take a look at YouTube. Yup. YouTube is now all HTML5. However, I don't think that HTML5 is 100% our answer to a smoother web surfing experience. Granted, I think it's a big piece of the puzzle. However, I think the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of web developers to stop building shitty sites and to start doing it right. They need to quit cutting corners and put in the time, hard work, and effort to make a site great using whatever technology that site requires. Too many people pigeon-hole themselves and refuse to grow beyond what they're comfortable; be it Flash, HTML, or other.
As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of Flash. However, I'll use it if I have to. I have a client that wanted a full Flash website. So, knowing it's SEO limitations, I built a Flash landing page (my thoughts on those another time) and built the rest of the site using jQuery. The site is interactive like she wanted, but it now works well with SEO techniques. So ultimately, she really is the big winner here.
Anyway, if I can leave you with just one thought, it would be this; HTML5 is Friggin' awesome and Flash is bloated. However, in order to build a web surfing experience that is interactive, exciting, and smooth, we need to leverage all of the technologies. Moreover, it's not up to big companies to decide for us what that will look like.
