Flash Is Dead; Long Live OpenFL! 166
First time accepted submitter lars_doucet writes "I am a 15-year Flash veteran and nobody hates to say this more than me: Flash is dying, and the killer is Adobe. Where to now? HTML5 doesn't help me with native targets, and Unity is proprietary just like Flash was — 'don't worry, we'll be around forever! And so sorry about that neglected bug report — we're busy.' I'm putting my bets on OpenFL, a Haxe-based, fully open-source implementation of the Flash API that might just please both Flash refugees and longtime Flash haters alike. My article discusses my experiences with it and gives a brief overview for newcomers. In short: I can keep making Flash games if I want, but with the same codebase I can also natively target Win/Mac/Linux desktops, mobile, and more, without having to mess with Adobe AIR or other virtual machines."
Re:Open Standards, Not stupid plugins. (Score:3, Informative)
To Clarify (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Native Targets? (Score:5, Informative)
If I'm not mistaken Haxe "compiles to C++" by interpreting the code into actual C++ source, which then gets compiled into a native binary with a standard C++ compiler.
Re:To Clarify (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Native Targets? (Score:5, Informative)
Native vs. interpreted vs. JITed discussion is a moot. (They are all fast enough. On one side. On the other side, many code generators/translators add enough cruft for the code to often lose performance compared to the JITed/interpreted execution.)
The problem is with the libraries required by the run-time. One can compile Java application into a native app (using GCJ), but it is of little use since you still need the Java run-time. IOW, you are still poised to run into run-time deployment issues (version conflicts, local configuration, paths, etc).
Compilation to native code has value only if it allows you to create an application which doesn't have external dependencies or the external dependencies are very easy to manage.
Re:Did netcraft report it? (Score:1, Informative)
I think the verb you're looking for is confirm, not report.
Exactly, use OpenFl instead , compiled to JavaScri (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, instead of using a plugin, author it in OpenFL and "compile" it as JavaScript. You get the nice Flash API and can use the Flashdevelop IDE if you want, without needing the Flash plugin.