Flash or No Flash, That is the Question

Preface

Ever since Steve Jobs revealed the upcoming iPad would be lacking flash capabilities, the web development world has been shaken, pondering the question “is it possible to live without flash?”. Even in our office at Lenker Design, we have been debating our use of flash in current and future web development. So… flash, or no flash… what should be our answer? Here are my thoughts on the subject:

My Thoughts…

First of all, I want to share my love/hate relationship with adobe flash. I love what it does and the fact that flash media looks virtually the same on all browsers. However, I’ve always found the application to be a little on the quirky side. Another one of my frustrations is the inability to easily work with a database in flash.

Is Apple Wrong?

I don’t believe I have the right to call Apple, such an innovative company and leader in implementation of up-coming technologies, wrong when they say that a technology is outdated. On the other hand, I can’t see flash disappearing from the web anytime soon. The internet is too ‘flashified’ for it to just vanish overnight… even if the iPad is a huge hit!

Can Flash Be Replaced?

Of course it can… Can it be replaced right now? Not so sure. There are plenty of great javascript replacements for much of what flash does… some of my favorite being the jQuery and Scriptaculous libraries. But there are some things that can’t be replaced just yet.

Should I Continue to Use Flash?

I just finished coding a new interactive site using jQuery instead of flash and had lots of fun doing it. I implemented some lava-lamp navigation, elegant slideshows, ajax-powered forms, and a database-driven interactive site-plan with dynamic text and images for lot availability (I’ll include a link when the site goes live). The point is… there are lots of good ways to replace flash interactivity for a lot of what we as web developers do… and sometimes we should. That said, I don’t think we need to be afraid continue using flash elements when there is no other good alternative…there… I said it (don’t be afraid to still use flash).

Conclusion…(short and sweet)

Do I think flash is evil? Certainly not. However, I do plan on building all future sites without flash elements, unless there is no other way to complete the task.

I also believe that if your site is flash-heavy, you should provide a mobile alternative for non-flash devices. You really have no excuse not to with such easy to use frameworks as jQTouch and IUI available for free.

If you’ve made it this far… thanks for listening and please leave some of your thoughts and opinions in the form of a comment below.