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Thread: Getting Tough Out There

  1. #21
    Dignitary rynoe's Avatar
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    State of the Union

    Check this out.

    Javascript....

    I watch these guys get lost in this crap all the time. Usually it's some variable they cast originally as a string and then tried to divide it by 6 or add it to the global reallyItTruelyIsTheTotalScoreThisTime variable, or forget to create the object before they tell it to do something, or just plain doesn't work in safari and/or IE8 so they added a 'pauseForBrowser' function that is 666,000 lines long checking version, dementions, time of day, distance to the sun, length of toenail, bloodtype, race, religion, number of protons, sexual preference and waist size of the browser you are using so the can redirect you to a page that can handle your specific request.

    Nice work by the way, only took you a month to do all that. Now you can post that poo on the WWW and all the other javascript monkeys can see it and throw it right back at you. great stuff...
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

  2. #22
    Total Universe Mod jAQUAN's Avatar
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    Hahaha. Yep I love when guys like Paul Irish get all poindexter and explains how polyfills and a massive stack of debugging tools are "advancements" in the space.
    This is a hilarious video of a mozilla employee who has clearly drank the kool-aid and attempts to convince us that if we wan't cool things that html can't do then we're doing it wrong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7xnK...ature=youtu.be

    Your link sounds a lot like createJS from Grant Skinner who Adobe themselves have adopted and built into Flash Pro. Still, all that sprite animation makes for a bigger slower file than the same swf would be and yet Steve Jobs said no flash because its a battery killer.

    I do want to try typescript though, couple a big flash guys have given it a thumbs up.

  3. #23
    Flashkit historian Frets's Avatar
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    So what's up with you are you still stuck in Germany without a job?

  4. #24
    Total Universe Mod jAQUAN's Avatar
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    Oddly enough, my previous employer has brought me in as a contractor on a big flash job. Hopefully that parlays into more steady work. I'll be done with school in April so hopefully that allows me to clear my head a bit.

  5. #25
    Flashkit historian Frets's Avatar
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    Well that's good to read.

  6. #26
    Senior Member joshstrike's Avatar
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    God. So many ideas in my head from reading this thread. This is a subject really close to my heart and which I can't talk to anybody about - not even talking shop with other "web designers".

    The truth is, I've basically given up on web design in the last couple years. It's certainly not worth putting out template sites - I never did. And the demand for bespoke product and rich media apps has crashed as a whole, with Flash's decline leading that crash but by no means being the end of it.

    +1M for jAQUAN's first comment, and to ryanoe's observations about javascript's equal (or worse) memory management, and the corporate undermining of free web browsing via apps. +1 to jAQUAN's (rarely made) observation that battery life is a lot worse when Javascript runs the same graphics routine as Flash...and that therefore steve jobs was a ****head who ruined a lot of people's careers for spite or personal gain.

    Look, 99% of the bloggers, commentators, and douchebags you have meetings with, who have opinions about what language some web app or website should be programmed in, *are not coders*. That's basically all you need to know about their qualification to talk about anything.

    I'm in a really weird position because I don't have a smart phone, and never used social media. I turn away clients who want to work with JQuery - I'll only do javascript animation if I can roll it myself. I vehemently refuse to put frames on a timeline, I write my AS2 in eclipse and my AS3 in Flex 3. I still actively develop and work on AS2 and AS3 apps that were written for private companies from 10 years ago onward. Feeling the need to keep up with the ****-factory of hype mongering business school graduates, I figured out HTML5's crappy canvas set far enough to write an open source screen graph based on it, so now when I have to do something and "no flash" is needed, I can code it comfortably without having to rotate the stage every time I put a pen down. But honestly, there isn't really even demand for canvas. That was just hype.

    It's fair to say that stupidity reigns right now. There is a terror of making something that won't work for mobile. Yes there's still a market for bespoke websites with a lot of finely tuned CSS3 and HTML5, but we all know this is extremely tedious, uncreative and NO FUN. And there is still a business app market that doesn't give a damn what the app's coded in as long as it's secure and it works in a browser. Both of those have had to become focal points as the ambitiously interactive web experience has evaporated. The last great little site I've seen like that was http://www.doggelganger.co.nz/. In 2008 we were bringing in huge sums to develop really creative stuff like this. It's a tragedy that the world hasn't moved in that direction, but it's a function of corporate control and cost-cutting, along with a dumbing down of the public and a lowering of expectations.

    If you love doing Flash, and you're really good at it, then you probably are one of the few people who's managed to bridge code and graphics and learned to navigate both sides of a single project. And wherever our future is, it's not on the WWW. It's in AIR apps, and possibly videogames. Again I'm amazed at how little attention is given to Scaleform. There is huge demand from video game producers for Flash devs to write Scaleform frontends. If you're fluent enough in AS2/3 to write large web applications, it's a cakewalk. And it's a blast. My current project coding the HUD for Star Citizen is one of the funnest Flash jobs I've ever been given... and it's in AS2 of all things.

    All my on sites are still in Flash - including my bitcoin casino - and that won't change. If and when some other platform comes up that's equally good for doing immersive apps like that, I'll switch to it. But it's hard out there in the Flash-for-web world, and what hurts the most is that some of our best minds are being wasted or put to bad use. What stings is not that you're not good enough to do HTML5 websites, but that *any idiot can do than that tedious, uncreative crap - and it potentially means seeing years of honing your skills at writing really good code go down the drain*.

    So my suggestion to all flash coders who feel this way is - go towards writing games. Put them in AIR, and put them on the web, and make people come to you to play them. Those kinds of experiences are just never going to be doable with HTML5/js/canvas. And for money, do what you have to do. But Actionscriptify your javascript. Work in HaXe, support jeash. Most importantly, when people ask for impossible things, or say stupid things about javascript, educate them.

    The masses are digging yet another terrible hole for themselves, like when they banned smoking in bars and destroyed all the pubs, or when they were all excited to get a no-down-payment ARM. Only in this case, the substitute is nothing at all; we've just lost 10 years worth of advancement in interactive media because the companies don't want to pay for it anymore. They've effectively lowered the consumer's expectations and twisted a lot of our work into something negative. BUT THEY STILL NEED CODERS - because the suits in charge of this scam don't know how to build anything.

    So lastly I want to urge everyone to charge a fair rate. If they aren't paying you for your time, and think they can get you to write multiple versions for the same price, then just say no. Let them go offshore and suffer the consequences. Businesses do lose in the end when they cut too many corners. The ones who don't cut corners tend to be the ones that succeed; and don't be afraid to let your boss's boss know that.

    Alright, done ranting now.
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  7. #27
    Flashkit historian Frets's Avatar
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    Hi Josh nice to see you around.

    I was going to write a long response but honestly don't have the time. Just wanna say I read ya.

  8. #28
    Total Universe Mod jAQUAN's Avatar
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    Good read Josh. I just have this feeling that people with html skills only are the one's who are afraid to call b*llsh*t on the industry.
    On a semi-brighter note, I did compile my first piece of typescript the other day. It was just a hello world but it was really nice to write logical javascript for once. I can't really say if it makes me feel better because I have to do a real test using markup and styles.

  9. #29
    Hood Rich FlashLackey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jAQUAN View Post
    Well my dream scenario is a single highly regulated core (preferably webkit) which each browser manufacturer would wrap. The DOM would render exactly the same everywhere but they'd each be free to add all their own bells and whistles. Chrome could still implement V8 and all of their google integration awesomeness, firefox could still support plugins and IE could still manage to **** things up all they want. Those features are really the only place browsers compete anyway.
    +1000

    After a few years in this "post-flash" market, I now believe that the depressed economy is a larger culprit than I had thought. Flash hasn't fared well because many clients have scaled back on more ambitious digital marketing projects where the advantages of Flash over HTML5 become more apparent.

    If HTML5 "killed and replaced" Flash as some people claim, we should expect that budgets that used to be spent on Flash would now be spent on HTML5 projects. We do enough business out there to observe with confidence that that isn't the case.

    Unfortunately, the economy doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon. In fact, it looks like it's going to get a lot worse during the next 5-10 years. So, yeah, it IS getting tough out there.
    "We don't estimate speeches." - CBO Director Doug Elmendorf

  10. #30
    Senior Member cancerinform's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FlashLackey View Post
    +1000

    After a few years in this "post-flash" market, I now believe that the depressed economy is a larger culprit than I had thought. Flash hasn't fared well because many clients have scaled back on more ambitious digital marketing projects where the advantages of Flash over HTML5 become more apparent.
    So it's Obama's fault :-). Nice to see you.
    - The right of the People to create Flash movies shall not be infringed. -

  11. #31
    Total Universe Mod jAQUAN's Avatar
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    Hey FL, glad to see you're still working.

  12. #32
    Hood Rich FlashLackey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cancerinform View Post
    So it's Obama's fault :-). Nice to see you.
    I'll just say that those are some very expensive contraceptives.

    Good to see you as well!

    Quote Originally Posted by jAQUAN View Post
    Hey FL, glad to see you're still working.
    Always. Are you moving back to the states eventually?
    "We don't estimate speeches." - CBO Director Doug Elmendorf

  13. #33
    Total Universe Mod jAQUAN's Avatar
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    I'll be in El Paso between May and August.

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