Happy B'day Flash! (Belated!)

I have been trying to publish this post for the past 3 days. Anyhow, time and I reached an agreement just now and we are live!

"Flash" is 10 years and 8 versions old now. Its time to reflect a bit on things and check out whats cookin'!

The first SWF I saw was back during the days of Flash 3. I am not sure if it was the Spooky and Bandit site that really did it! I was really taken by the interactivity and fluidity of graphics and sound. It was an amazing experience. Remember, these were still the days of HTML and poor bandwidth on dialups. For the amount of GFX, Sound and interactivity there was, it took quite a short time to load. Following natural instincts, I wanted to get onto the bandwagon. I went into a design based chatroom and asked - "How do I save a file as an SWF?". Got a quick reply - "File > Save". Ok, they were just pulling my leg, and that didnt spoil my eagerness. About 2-3 days later I got it. The Macromedia suite trial on a magazine CD- Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Director and Flash.

I still didnt know Flash made SWFs and kinda got confused with Shockwave. Yahoo-ed (Google was unknown to me back then!) for it and found Director to be doing the Shockwave thingy. Director was kewl at first, but, became a bit boring. And then, one day, it had to happen! I said - "Wonder what Flash is.." it said animation and interactivity in the product info!!! Installed it, used it and Loved it!

So that was how I got into Flash! I have been thru every version since then and now trying out stuff with Flash 9. Flash has truly become powerful - from just typing gotoAndStop to OOPS. The people at Macromedia (and now with Adobe) are all true visionaries! "FutureSplash Animator", kinda meant for Animation is now a big thing with developers too.

Big Steps:
- Flash MX (V6) brought in the components
- Flash MX 2004 Professional brought in OOPS, V2 components with data handling mechanisms, Mobile Development. Flash-based RIA grew!
- Flash 8 was a big step in rendering engines for text, graphics, together with blending and also gave a huge thrust to mobile development and Rich Internet applications.
- Flash 9 brings in AS 3. A huuuuuuuuge step forward and mighty powerful!

Macromedia also had other ways to exploit the technology and create products that used the Flash concept. They created Flash Remoting, Flash Communication Server, Central, Flex, Flashpaper, Breeze, Flash Lite and so on. All this goes to say how big the Flash technology really is!

Flash never really had a tough competitor! Corel brought in RAVE and Adobe brought in LiveMotion, when Macromedia announced SWF as opensource! Flash won at every turn. More people want their sites to made using Flash..Hell!! applications are being made with Flash! A lot of companies wanted to make their pot of money and brought in stuff to support Flash. EXE makers, decompilers, Editors..u name it!

Adobe acquired Macromedia and continue to spread the wings. Platform independence, Device support, application development, design and interactivity still remain buzzwords and as long as all these things makes sense, Flash will continue on its path. The future remains bright and big days are ahead!

Will Microsoft play their game and destroy Flash with "Sparkle"? The rumour mill says Sparkle might support the web in future versions. Whats more.. IE now blocks active content. Get it?I've said things before about Sparkle previously and supported it to a big extent. As long as Flash is out there, I will always love it!

Happy B'day Flash! And here is to the next 100 years! :)