[ On Saturday, August 21, 2004 at 00:34:13 (-0400), Louis Guillaume wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Flash for *BSD Petition
>
> My first instinct is to agree with this BUT that's like saying "because 
> I've heard music made with guitar that I don't like: Guitars annoying. 
> Guitars bad." It's sort of a narrow view of a single means or medium in 
> which to create content.

I think your analogy sucks rather horribly.  SWF vs. HTML is apples
vs. oranges -- it's not even remotely a matter of "all the SWF I've seen
is bad therefore all SWF is bad."

> It so happens that many web developers out there have chosen flash as 
> their medium and as a result, many clients out there know that animated 
> or "flashy" content is an option and want it.

The WWW, especially the part people read/view, is (supposed) to be about
_standards_ compliant HTML.  HTML is primarily about words, and the
stuff that gets embedded is supposed to be incidental or supplemental.

It's one thing to have images and even really basic animated images
embedded in an HTML page (a good and appropriate picture can be worth a
thousand words), but it's another thing entirely to usurp HTML
completely and send what amounts to _code_ for the browser to execute,
and that's exactly what "flash" stuff usually is used to do.

Foreign code _BAD_.  Foreign code _DANGEROUS_.  Foreign code _HURTS_.

This "SWF" media crap really must die.

> I've had a client ask me to produce a site with animation on the front 
> page. I tried to talk them out of it because many people will not be 
> able to view the animation or are annoyed by it. Their response was, 
> "Well we trust your creative ability. We believe that you can produce an 
> animated page that people will like and an alternate for those who can't 
> view it. So do it" Whether I actually have that creative ability or not 
> is not the issue. The issue is that I *could*.

Sadly there are a huge number of idiots out there who don't bother to
create that alternate page for those who choose not to download and
execute foreign code....

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

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