Adobe's failure
Out of context: Reply #24
- Started
- Last post
- 26 Responses
- SteveJobs0
"The only comparison I can see is that Java hasn't been able to win in the browser because it runs like crap there"
not really. it runs very fast, actually. i built an 8-bit emulator in flash a couple years back and it crawled compared to java. this has a little to do with hardware accelleration, but more to do with it's internal messaging system and the poor timing systems extended through the api.
anyway, one reason it never really gained much traction is because it was a complicated technology for its time. compared that to early versions of actionscript which ran on netscape's own javascript interpreter. flash offered a very, very low learning curve for anyone wanting to create complex timline-based animations and tie simple scripting operations to objects. macromedia/adobe made vast improvements over the years and created a very robust api. java was already losing traction.
another big reason is penetration. back in the day, browsers didn't come with the java plug-in by default. this is where macromedia/adobe really had the advantage. that and better marketing which sun had little to none of.
as for the browser thing, let's just agree to disagree. i personally don't see any value in such an initiative.