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Forums - Gaming - Welcome to the future - HTML5

rocketpig on 13 April 2010
czecherychestnut said:
rocketpig said:
czecherychestnut said:
rocketpig said:
There are still weaknesses with HTML5 but you have to admit that some of the stuff you can do with it is pretty freakin' cool.

Browser makers need to really get on board with this new stuff. I'm hoping that auto-updates in modern browsers will allow legacy stuff to phase out faster (it would be a HUGE boon to web devs) but it doesn't really seem to work that way, especially for people using IE. Can you believe that almost 10% of the web population still uses IE6? Jesus, that was the shittiest browser ever created. I want to eSlap every damned person who hasn't at least updated to 7 (because asking them all to use their brain and switch to FF is asking too much).

Most IE6 users are businesses who have software that would break running on anything other than IE6, hence why it still has marketshare. Maybe with the GFC slowing improving businesses will start to putting the necessary money into IT to upgrade all legacy software that relies on IE6.

OT, personally don't see why people other than Mac users are jumping on the flash hate bandwagon so much. I browse the internet heavily, including a lot of flash heavy websites, and my browser crashes probably once every month or so.  CPU usage on my older Centrino Solo never spikes more than 30% at the start of a flash file when its buffering and decoding. If people hate on flash because of flash ads, well then a world with html5 will simply mean html 5 ads, which will be just as annoying and harder to block without breaking whole websites. If people hate on flash because its proprietary, then html5 won't improve it, because it too in some instances relies on third party IP for video decoding.

Given the lack of browser support for all of html5 (including h.264 decoding), I just can't see the appeal of HTML5 at this stage. Yeah it could be good, but is it any better than what flash is capable of right now. So far I haven't seen it. And as for Mac/iphone users, well I'd be blaming Apple more than Adobe, for not having a viable DirectX equivalent on MacOS X that allows software developers access to 3D acceleration hardware. Yes, its got Quicktime X, but its no where near as useful for accelerated video decoding as DirectX.

If you're a site owner, you're THRILLED about HTML5 ads. I know you guys love to block ads, but I hope you realize that's where sites like VGC earn pretty much all their money. If you appreciate VGC and its contributors, you shouldn't be complaining about a tech that will make it harder to block ads, especially when so much of ad revenue is based on per-click. OTOH, I'm right with you on sound-enabled ads. I HATE them. In my opinion, it's a bad move for sites where a good portion of the users browse while at work. But I won't block ads that are unobtrusive. I don't think it's fair to the site owners who work so hard to give us a place to play.

And actually, as I said in another post, I have no problems with Flash ads or Flash apps. My problem is with sites who use the tech too heavily, putting unnecessary animations or swf files in their site. Using it for banners, ads, and that sort of thing... well, that's what Flash does well. Where it doesn't work well is using it for key site components, which most sites don't do anymore anyway.

But I'm not a site owner, and neither is 99.9% of internet users. Maybe I've just been surfing too many Mac forums, but just seems so many people are lighting torches and sharpening pitch forks ready to kill flash, when they don't seem to realise it won't make their internet experience any better. Ads will still be annoying but harder to block, websites will continue to get larger and larger requiring more and more bandwidth, potentially it will be just as flaky with iffy browser support, and it will still monster your CPU if you try and play h264 video unaccelerated in your browser.

I mean I support HTML5, because I believe standards shouldn't be controlled by one company. But Flash is a defacto standard, and computers have used many defacto standards without harm over their evolution.  Until HTML5 is definitely better and more efficient and more stable than flash, then I'm happy to keep using it.

I agree with you on sites using too much flash, its annoying as hell just for the obscene bandwidth costs and load times. But then again I'm old fashioned and never saw the need for the overcomplicated design most websites use these days to appear 'fresh' and 'modern'. Hate website redesigns just for the sake of redesigns, even when half the time it makes navigating the website worse. Bring back HTML frames and GIF images I say, and get off my lawn.

Frames were one of the worst inventions ever because they made portions of the site unlinkable. Frames were a moment in time and nothing else, thank god.

As for "99.9%" of users not being site owners, well let me break this to you... the web will improve if site owners are able to get more click-throughs. That's just the way it is. You may think you're being cute by easily being able to block ads but overall, it just hurts everyone. Blocking ads leads to more obnoxious attempts to FORCE you to watch an ad (hey, who doesn't love splash ad pages?) instead of being able to more easily integrate them into a site. Remember that you're riding on the backs of people who do a shitload of hard work to give you a place to roam on the interwebz. Don't so easily cast off what is probably their only source of revenue to give you your playground that you so enjoy.

As for Flash, I don't hate the program; in fact, I use it on a regular basis. But I use it SPARINGLY. It's a resource hog and has its place on the web and probably always will but people over-use it and too often butcher sites where a nice little javascript would fill the need much more cleanly.




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

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Words Of Wisdom on 13 April 2010
rocketpig said:

You may think you're being cute by easily being able to block ads but overall, it just hurts everyone. Blocking ads leads to more obnoxious attempts to FORCE you to watch an ad (hey, who doesn't love splash ad pages?) instead of being able to more easily integrate them into a site. Remember that you're riding on the backs of people who do a shitload of hard work to give you a place to roam on the interwebz. Don't so easily cast off what is probably their only source of revenue to give you your playground that you so enjoy.

+1.

Unobtrusive ads that help support the websites I love visiting without hurting my browsing experience are great.

The ability to decide what ads I want to see and not see with extensions like Adblock/Adthwart is also great.

rocketpig said:

As for Flash, I don't hate the program; in fact, I use it on a regular basis. But I use it SPARINGLY. It's a resource hog and has its place on the web and probably always will but people over-use it and too often butcher sites where a nice little javascript would fill the need much more cleanly.

Powerful javascript libraries like jquery, mootools, and prototype kill pretty much all non-canned flash apps.



.jayderyu on 13 April 2010

Just a note about 3d games in browsers. I have found that most of the ones I have tried run through plugins. Including Quake 2. Though I am looking for WebGL full implementation. Just to be clear that Quake 2 isn't running on HTML5.



Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.

rocketpig on 13 April 2010

Yep, JS is putting an end to much of the bad use of Flash as we know it. I still love Flash for certain things but they're becoming rarer and rare because, unlike my best friend, I'm not an AS3 mother-fucking-master. Flash is adapting itself by moving into stand-alone (read "non-web") apps and video. It still has a place in the world but thankfully, Adobe is quickly re-tooling its lineup to make Flash more of an honest language and less of a graphical whore tool.




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

Words Of Wisdom on 13 April 2010
rocketpig said:
Yep, JS is putting an end to much of the bad use of Flash as we know it. I still love Flash for certain things but they're becoming rarer and rare because, unlike my best friend, I'm not an AS3 mother-fucking-master. Flash is adapting itself by moving into stand-alone (read "non-web") apps and video. It still has a place in the world but thankfully, Adobe is quickly re-tooling its lineup to make Flash more of an honest language and less of a graphical whore tool.

Flash provided a means to deliver content in a uniform fashion across all browsers (via plugin) during a time when that was really, really hard.  As the browsers have improved, Flash's utility drifted toward animation heavy elements.  I see Flash as a crutch for the web and the web slowly realizing that it doesn't need that crutch anymore.  I look forward to seeing the niche Adobe creates for it in the future.



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BillyBOBMahog on 13 April 2010

New standards are always a good thing. But they are slow at evolving. Proprietary software will always get to be a step ahead.



DM235 on 13 April 2010

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML5_be_finished.3F

"It is estimated by the editor that HTML5 will reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012."

"It is estimated, again by the editor, that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later."

I think you shouldn't be uninstalling Flash just yet...



WereKitten on 13 April 2010
HappySqurriel said:

While I haven't developed for it personally yet, I'm really not a fan of HTML 5 from what I know about it.

A lot of what it seems to do is include the functionality of successful plugins into HTML by default while completely ignoring the core problems web-developers face on a daily basis; namely that HTML is stateless and a poor tool to develop most applications that are being built using it.

Uhm, I'd say that embedding videos is one of the core problems in a lot of web designs when you have to face the shoddiness of Flash on every platform but windows.

Anyway, regarding state: HTML5 also includes specifications for client side storage including extended session, a local data store for JS and plugins and even SQL database access. So much so, that Google is putting their weight in replacing their own googlegears datastore plugin - powering their office web applicatons - with an HTML5 one.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman