Chris Pelsor pointed me to this Ask Slashdot article on “Online Replacements for Desktop Apps”. Interesting read (at least in places, but such is Slashdot), but I found it strange how few of the RIAs Slashdotters know of are Flash-based. My gModeler app made it as the first app mentioned (yay, I’ve been slashdotted), but most of the other examples people posted were Java or or DHTML.
I wonder if this is simply indicative of Slashdot mentality (which naturally tends towards open-source and standards), or a wider public view.
Its funny how just about anytime someone mentions flash on Slashdot a horde of posts start pouring in about how evil flash is. Most of the people who post have no clue about what cool things are being done with flash technology today.
Both things are true. Flash can do some cool stuff. But it fights its history, its parent company, its closed code base and direction, and even its name in trying to be perceived by the IT community as anything other than a designer’s tool.
I think the solution is to do good Flash work and let the work speak for itself.
RIA’s, Central, Flex, Lazlo, and the swf
SlashDot on RIAs .