Ask YC: Why doesn't Google use better technology to build its services (e.g., Flash)?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=180970

by amichail • 18 years ago

10 49 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Almost everyone has Flash installed after all.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

globalrev• 18 years ago

because flash sucks?

amichail6• 18 years ago

Could you elaborate?

Maybe it's not convenient for developers, but the result is better for users than an ad hoc mix of old web technologies that is seriously lacking in features and plagued with compatibility problems.

wmf3• 18 years ago

It appears that AJAX cross-browser compatibility problems can be solved using infinite money.

Besides video, what compelling Flash features aren't available in JS+HTML?

baha_man2• 18 years ago

From the Google Webmaster Central Blog: "Try to use Flash only where it is needed... this makes you[r] site accessible to a larger audience, including, for example, blind people using screen readers, users of old or non-standard browsers, and those on limited low-bandwidth connections such as on a cell phone or PDA."

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses...

I can think of a few good examples of web sites which use Flash effectively, e.g. the BBC 'Get Cooking' site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/get_cooking/

However, Flash normally seems to be used for displaying pointless, obnoxious splash screens which add no value for the user.

CPops• 18 years ago

To some extent, you can ameliorate these concerns, but using Flash for a website generally leads to usability issues.

Here's an article from me explaining why, if you're interested.

http://informationrain.com/2007/07/25/why-i-dont-make-flash-...

In my opinion, flash should mainly be used for what it's great at....making games, some types of interactive tools, and a decent quality cross-platform video solution.

Goladus3• 18 years ago

Actually it's not always better for users. There are usually tradeoffs when choosing technologies and this is no exception. There are two (maybe three) fundamental issues with Flash.

The vast majority of internet content is conveyed with text, links, and images. Even a with a site like YouTube, there's a host of information related to each video that is best conveyed using text, links, and images. And apart from the rendering part images are essentially just links. Flash has a whole lot of overhead and does not perform basic text and linking tasks very well.

The second is that it has limited access to the underlying operating system.

The third is that it's a proprietary environment controlled by Adobe.

flashgordon• 18 years ago

actually flash may "suck", but the flex (and air) sdk is not half bad... even I could learn it in about half a day and managed to put together some pretty sophisticated tools at work (game development stuff)..

the real reason i would say google would not want to use flash is due to its not-so-openness and thereby prepping itself for more uncertainity in the future.

rms2• 18 years ago

>I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

http://gears.google.com/

amichail6• 18 years ago

That's not a competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

rms2• 18 years ago

It's the only thing they have in the online/offline integration space. If not a direct competitor, it still has relevance. Google doesn't use Flex or Silverlight because they can reproduce complex interfaces in just javascript and it's usable offline with Google Gears.

If Google wanted to compete with Flex/Silverlight, they could release a GUI widget toolkit for javascript and combined with Google Gears they would have a contender.

bartman• 18 years ago

Google uses Flash for their charts in analytics and finance.

humanlever• 18 years ago

Google revolves around information accessibility, using Flash for anything besides the presentation of graphics is a big step back in that area.

Youtube may make good use of Flash, but even they limit it to areas of absolute necessity.

amichail6• 18 years ago

Why can't Flash be improved to make information accessible?

technoguyrob2• 18 years ago

Ask Adobe?

bootload• 18 years ago

".... Why can't Flash be improved to make information accessible? ..."

Probably for the same reason the tech that google does use can. Openness.

idea• 18 years ago

> I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

Microsoft has big problems getting Silverlight off the ground, although it is imo technically superior to Flash. I don't think it would be easier for Google to launch a competing platform. I personally think that they will bet on HTML5 through their partnership with Mozilla.

presty• 18 years ago

Why doesn't Google use better technology to build its services (e.g., Flash)?

What better technology? Guess who popularized AJAX?

Flash sucks. There's no real support for linux from adobe, it makes the browser heavier, it's a closed proprietary technology and it's awful for things that are not animation related.

jcbozonier• 18 years ago

Actually Flash is open source now. You can even make your own player: http://www.adobe.com/openscreenproject/

wmf3• 18 years ago

But making your own player doesn't give you any say over the future of Flash, so if you do that you're getting on a treadmill controlled by Adobe.

kennyroo• 18 years ago

For my own selfish reasons, I'm pleased that Google doesn't use Flash for applications. Using XHTML/CSS/JS/etc. is great because other developers can inspect it, understand it, and go from there.

For practical purposes, I suspect Flash may be a pain in the ass to use on their scale. Debug, version control, localization, analytics, and more probably wouldn't play well with the rest of their platform and processes.

Also, Flash isn't supported on many wireless devices including the high-profile iPhone.

Future releases of HTML and JavsScript will handle some of what Flash does today. Perhaps it's just not necessary.

thaumaturgy2• 18 years ago

I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned what I would expect would be one of the biggest reasons: bandwidth. Considering the number of people hitting the various Google services at any given moment, adding Flash, and/or pretty images or extra CSS or fancy-pants JavaScript could induce a pretty big additional cost, and for no justifiable reason.

wmf3• 18 years ago

Why would compressed bytecode (Flash) be larger than source code (JavaScript)? AMF is also generally smaller than JSON or XML.

thaumaturgy2• 18 years ago

| Why would compressed bytecode (Flash) be larger than source code (JavaScript)?

I read the original question as asking why Google didn't add Flash onto its interface. I suppose it might be possible to replace their current JavaScript functions with Flash bytecode, but given the lengths they go to already to compress their JavaScript, I'd be surprised if the benefits there would be worth the trouble, not to mention any possible costs they might end up with due to migrating to Flash. (Browser support, version changes...?)

| AMF is also generally smaller than JSON or XML.

I kinda recalled Gmail (for instance) not using XML, but I dumped a session through Firebug to make sure. They're using their own (very simple) data format, and I doubt that AMF, or SOAP, or anything else could beat it, short of using actual data compression on both server and client side (and, again, probably not worth it).

Crawling through the Gmail code and data only reinforces my guess that their services are designed with low bandwidth usage among their top priorities.

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

Class libraries. Usually, to do anything impressive with Flash either requires lots of multimedia assets or lots of class libraries. JavaScript has the ability to piggyback off the browser's HTML/CSS rendering engines.

A lot also has to do with their respective cultures - as a JavaScript dev, you learn to do more with less because doing more with more is so exquisitely painful. That's why Flash UIs are often visually more attractive - it's easier for them to be visually attractive.

And JavaScript compresses really well - it's not unusual for GZipped + minified JavaScript to be less than 20% the size of the uncompressed source code.

xtat• 18 years ago

flash is shit. next?

axod• 18 years ago

* It's slow * It's proprietory * It's not supported on several platforms (iPhone, wii, etc etc)

Javascript works just fine thanks. With HTML5 and the video capabilities flash/silverlight will become even less relevant IMHO

aswanson• 18 years ago

To what end?

icey• 18 years ago

Why would an indexing company promote non indexable content?

bbgm• 18 years ago

That's a big part of the answer. Flash is not indexable, and is one of the biggest problems that Flash has.

Flash has its uses, and Google does use Flash where it makes sense, e.g. the charts on Google Analytics.

omfut• 18 years ago

Iam not a flash fan. But off late it has amazed me with the functionality and features that can built so fast. If u have flash IDE, man building web sites are lot faster and easier. Iam sure it has is own drawbacks. I don’t agree with folks that say flash is not available in all browsers. Flash penetration is around 80-90 % of global market. Wake up guys.

Cheers, omfut

xenoterracide2• 18 years ago

links, screen readers, mobile, and sometimes see gap between flash 7 and 9 on linux not the current version.

ikerin• 18 years ago

Doesn't anyone remember, back in the day, when HTML was "just fine" and javascript was 'clunky', 'unusable', and had a multitude of accessability issues. Cross-browser javascript problems, anyone? Now, of course flash also has its issues, but believe it or not, they are, much, much fewer and smaller than javascript/ajax had when it first started out, and even, dare i say, now.

The accessability issues, associated with flash are usually (as always) because the developer didn't know how to fix them, or didn't care to. There simply hasn't been a "killer app" like gmail, to show all the world that it could do thing much better than is generally asumed.

For example did you know that you can make a flash site change it's url as you navigate through it, enabling you to link/bookmark a specific section or a page of it (also allowing you yo use back/forward buttons)? The accessability issues have also long been solved, giving 'no-flash' users a striped down, yet fully functional/accesible site (as is the idea of javascript behaviours, if I recall correctly). (Take a look at this site http://www.rizn.bg for example of the two above - I know it's not english but the important thing is the concept)

And flash in itself has much more potential than javascript/ajax. 3D animations, build-in optimised compression algorithms, easier server integration, video/audio streaming, webcamera support, better file upload, etc, and it's all build in, on a single platform, with a quite nice and consistent api on top of it. Actionscript (the flash language) is a quite nice blend of java and javascript, minus the java bloat, complete with classes, inheritence, true C-like data types (insane performance), clusures. And it's all a lot more cross-browser friendly, than any other competing tehnology.

Now, i'm not suggesting we all jump in, because it does have issues still (font rendering, os integration and of caurse performance, to name a few) but there are quite a few places where it is a very good alternative. Just because most of the flash we come in contact with are useless splash screens and tacky animations, it doesn't mean that it can't do better. It's a hugely undervalued platform in my opinion, and we kinda have to 'wake up' and talk about its benefits instead of "it'll never work, its better to stick to what you know".

As for the original question - maybe because when it started out, flalsh was not good enough (pre flash 9 time), and by now they already have an infrastructure in place. Maybe if they create something radically new, they'll try to adopt flash, otherwise they'll stick with what works for them now.

Ask YC: Why doesn't Google use better technology to build its services (e.g., Flash)?

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