I know some of you guys are web developers and maybe you can help me understand this? These things kill battery life and run slow on like netbooks, and like every site on internet tries to use more flash and javascript. I can understand using them for playing movies and some menus, but so many sites are going way overboard with it? I know it looks pretty, but you can make a pretty page without overdoing it.
There's native Javascript support in browsers. The codec for flash is pretty efficient and acceptable for its size. Plus it's everywhere. You don't have to worry the user doesn't have the codec installed. I hear that sites that go overboard with it usually fall victim to marketing department's desires for "the next big thing" without having a graphics designer's eye and experience to know better... Google released Go last month. Don't know much about it, but gotta love their knack for trying and shaking things up.
I'm a web designer and I despise Flash for anything other than multimedia playback and simple animations. For the most part, full Flash sites are overdone, have too many pointless features, and are otherwise annoying. The vast majority could be created (and be more user friendly as a result) by using standard XHTML, CSS, etc. I wouldn't put JavaScript in the same category though. It's a very useful language that benefits your web browsing experience far more than most people probably realize. Of course, like anything else, too much can be a bad thing and that certainly happens from time to time. Can't really help it I guess, because it does so much that can't be done otherwise.
they're popular because they're client side script/app, making it realtively safe and fast. they also came out first (for their respective type).
Well at least Flash is aptly named: all flash, little substance. Personally, I have no problem with Javascript (when used properly, of course. ANYTHING can be overdone). But when I bought a new laptop recently, the first add-on I installed on FF was Flashblocker. Can't stand 'em.
One can use Flash/ActionScript to create browser games. This can not be a bad thing. I think the big picture for JavaScript (and ActionScript) is that they allow the web applications to have a fatter, smarter clients, versus having all of the muscle on the server side.
