0

Do you think flash performance is bad mainly due to the fact that most people build flash applications using the flex framework? As opposed to the problem having everything to do with the lower level flash system.

What percent of flash apps are built with flex?

Ryan
  • 1,645
  • 2
  • 15
  • 24
  • 5
    There are two kinds of software: the kind that people complain about, and the kind that nobody uses. – Mike Baranczak Jun 03 '11 at 04:29
  • When you speak of performance, do you refer to the runtime performance of the flash player, or of the time to download necessary assets? – scriptocalypse Jun 03 '11 at 06:14
  • @scriptocalypse Either. What I want to know is - is all the complaining about flash performance due in large part to flash developers using flex to build their apps? are most runtime complaints due to flex? are most download complaints due to flex? – Ryan Jun 04 '11 at 04:39
  • 1
    Flex historically has added tremendously to download times, yes. Also, the Flex framework is heavier on abstractions than vanilla AS3, so in that respect using it at runtime is also going to give you a worse starting point with runtime performance. More than anything else though, poor runtime performance comes from poorly optimized art assets (in particular complex vector art) and poor download times come from the developer choosing to preload all assets before launching the application. – scriptocalypse Jun 04 '11 at 09:35

2 Answers2

2

Most of the Flash applets that I see do not use Flex. At least, they don't look like they do.

Mike Baranczak
  • 2,614
  • 16
  • 16
1

No, it's because flash is slow to load and generally doesn't deliver enough value for the time waiting for it to load.

Christopher Mahan
  • 3,404
  • 19
  • 22
  • 1
    @Christopher That's very related to flex. I'm pretty sure with flex it's impossible to generate a .swf < 200kb. Whereas it is possible to make a useful .swf that is 10kb without flex. Regardless of that though, I don't understand your point. Doesn't it depend on the size of the .swf? Does a small .swf with nothing else on the page really load slowly for you? – Ryan Jun 03 '11 at 04:14
  • Flash does deliver value if you know how to milk it. – Nav Jun 03 '11 at 04:46
  • 1
    @Nav: That's why I said generally. Some games, especially, are completely worth it. – Christopher Mahan Jun 03 '11 at 07:26
  • 1
    @Ryan When google returns a page in 0.1 seconds, I can't stand to see the "loading 31%..." of flash unless I know it's something I really really want. And most of the time, I just hit the back button, because flash designers very often think of flash as TV, to make of me a passive viewer. This offers nothing for me. If I wanted to watch pretty TV, I'd watch Cameron's Avatar on the 60" downstairs. – Christopher Mahan Jun 03 '11 at 07:29
  • @Christopher Do you lose your cool and hit the back button every time you see the gmail loading bar? How about when a site insists on loading half a meg of javascript and image files before you can reasonably see or use the page? Is it the fact that you're even shown a progress bar that's offensive? Would you be less offended if you weren't even told you're waiting? – scriptocalypse Jun 04 '11 at 09:37
  • 1
    @scriptocalypse I use a 3G phone to surf the web often, and many sites are horribly slow, flash or no flash. But my experience is that flash is not worth waiting for, meaning most flash content is a waste of time. Why is that? People that want to deliver information use HTML. – Christopher Mahan Jun 04 '11 at 16:25