I'm interested on peoples thoughts on this. My strong belief is that HTML5 is eventually going to be the technology of choice for generating interactive/animated web based content, although it will take a while as Flash has a loyal following and a huge web footprint.

I'm not sure if HTML5 and Flash can coexist as happy competitors based purely on technical merit over any decent period of time, at some point it has to be one or the other for all intents and purposes from a developers point of view.

Some examples of HTML5:

http://deanm.github.com/pre3d/monster.html
http://www.chiptune.com/kaleidoscope/
http://spielzeugz.de/html5/liquid-particles.html
http://tomtheisen.com/spread/

Adobe has announced a move to eventually allow ActionScript to export to HTML5, but what they currently have is pretty poor, and looks more like a hollow promise which hasn't come anywhere near to delivering yet.

What are other peoples thoughts on this? I'm interested to hear. I've already seen some absolutely stunning things made in HTML5, and it's good to have an open technology as supposed to a commercial monopoly. Adobe wont give up without a fight, but I'm not sure if their future in dynamic web content is sustainable any more.

I believe that HTML5 is the future. I read a good article recently which described how flash came about to allow developers to achieve things that HTML4 would not allow them to do.

Once HTML5 becomes standard, the need for flash will be gone, and developers will turn in favour of native HTML.

Imo, the reasons for using flash pre HTML5 are as follows

• It can produce animations that are not possible in HTML4
• It can stream video
• It is compatible across all platforms and browsers (assuming the plugin is installed)
• It is fast
• It is (relatively) easy to develop

I'm sure there are more, but the basic idea is that HTML5 will will in all the holes that Flash was created for, removing the need for Flash completely (all the above points are present in HTML5).

Add in the fact that iOS doesnt support flash and its dead in the water imo.

flash sucks. theres not much more to add.

Yep. What rt said.

HTML 5 still has a long ways to go. The canvas performance just isn't there yet compared to flash. I'm not a flash fanboy either, I'm looking forward to the day it's obsolete (1 less moving part).

You can start using HTML 5 today in moderation though. With Google's html5shiv it's perfectly safe to take advantage of some of its new attributes (header, footer, nav). They will render properly in non-HTML 5 compliant browsers.

The only good thing flash has going for it right now is handling file uploads.

Flash was what comics were to filmmakers when special effects were unheard of.
It's 20 years old, proprietary and one hell of a security hole.

Flash and hopefully silverlight will be gone pretty soon.

Microsoft already announced that they are going to discontinue silverlight: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...15-711288.html

I hate flash. Rooting hard for HTML5.

At this point it's not if it will happen, it's when.

iOS killed Flash.

Well, Steve Jobs killed Flash. Just like he killed audio DRM.

- The Blackberry Playbook is built completely on the Flash platform. That may give Flash a few death throws.

- I don't understand how you can say HTML5 > flash because flash = bad because of security. Javascript isn't the most secure format out there either, and if you don't know javascript, you most certainly can't program HTML5, since HTML5 is basically javascript on steroids. I bet that HTML5 will be poorly programmed and it will be just as dangerous as flash, if not more so.

Here's some really good HTML5 examples:

My favorite by far:
http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/ball_pool/

Another one that deserves mention:
http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

some more:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/48-excellent-html5-demos/

Flash is bad because it's not even comparable to the HTML 5 combination of standards. Flash is a one-vendor product, not an industry standard in any meaningful way.

The Adobe Flash developers' apparent inability to code their way out of a paper bag is the symptom, not the problem.

This sounds similar to the argument being used for transition to IPv6 for the last 10 years

Fortunately Apple and Google are pushing html 5, and Microsoft seems to recognise it lost the Silverlight battle so flash will hopefully die a slow painful death.

The cynic in me thinks that MS will buy Adobe and optimise flash for Nokia phones, making it live on forever.

Silverlight was a rushed product, and it's really really awful. Also when we talk about security, it's good to define exactly what parts of security we are talking about.

Also, 99% of security leaks come from the way the code is written, not the programming language itself. You can have the most secure language in the world, but if you suck at writing code, it wont make the slightest difference.

True ^ but again it depends on what aspects of security we are really talking about

Lol fanboyism ITT

Nice ad hominem.

And Flash insecure because there are no real actionScript coders, just flash builders. HTML5 isn't an easy language to work with, and considering how many people use drag-and-drop templates for their basic HTML/CSS sites, I can't imagine that there will all of a sudden be a flux of HTML5 coders out there who are doing a great job of programming HTML5 + javascript + CSS3.

There will be an HTML5 Builder software out there shortly, then HTML5 will become the rigor. HTML5 won't catch on until the language is easy for everyone to create webpages, not the other way around. This should cause the same security nightmare that is (or at that time: "was") Flash.

The difference between the new wave of HTML 5 JS-heavy sites and Flash is that Javascript and CSS aren't some new, one-vendor things. The JS and CSS implementations out there are mature. They're tested. They've been hammered to death.

And there are many of them, open, competing against each other, constantly improving.

Flash being Adobe's baby, Adobe was never under any pressure to get *good* at it.

MS announced that like a year ago already, nothing happened besides bugfixing now takes them forever because no manpower is assigned to the group.

I was hoping that "they" would time it better and that Google will be heard.

With the expected end of ip4 and the beginning of ip6, I did hope that the translation will become much more radical and people will start using HTML5.

I highly overestimated the speed in which people will adapt and get rid of old, good known trash.

As much google is arguable, SPDY is long overdue

Do you really belive Steve Jobs killed Flash and DRM? If so yeah I'm fine with an ad hominem.
For starters, do you really think Flash is dead? Do you think Jobs invented the alternative?

Also tl;dr as to why HTML5>Flash:
Open>Closed (specifically for wideused IT stuff)

http://maqetta.org/

ZOMG IBM killed Flash :P



I think the chasm also applies to all of technology not just new products