The “Showdown of technologies”. “Battle” between both… Chris = Ajax, Andrey = Flash!
My notes:
- "skip intro" vs. "globale Bewegung, die das Web komplett revolutioniert"?
- Points: 0, 1, 2 (2 = best)
Flash Ajax
Suchmaschinen (SEO) 0 2
Accessibility (Barrierefreiheit) 2 2
Permalinks / Backbutton 1 2
Sprechende Urls 1 2
Microformats / Semantics 0 2
Fallback (Alternative Versionen) 0 2
Cookies 2 1
Online / Offline 1 0
Bitmap grafics 2 2
Image manipulations 2 1
Vector images 2 1
Audio / Video / Streaming 2 0
Micro / Cam 2 0
Gaming / Conference / Sockets 2 1
Community vs. Enterprise support 1 1
OpenSource vs. company dependent 1 1
Available brainpower 1 2
Libraries, Components 2 1
Documentation 2 1
IDE, editors 2 1
Debugging 0 2
large xml documents 2 0
large text content 0 2
large media files 1 1
startup time 1 2
license 1 2
cross browser 1 0
cross domain 2 1
integration 1 2
Total 37 37
Comments:
- Ajax
- website must work without js as well!
- permalinks with ajax possible, some tricks avaialable
- fallback and seo about the same from tech point of view
- cookies length constraints from browsers
- rather new movement, a lot of libraries which do something, no or view documentation
- debugging very good, as standard technology with browser and development extensions
- ie mojo has speedoptimized startup code
- cross browsing is tricky, so you might use available libraries
- cross domain is "hacky" -> use flash for it
- Flash
- flash is evil for searchengines
- in own environment for accesibility
- microformats is a html thing
- flash-plugin for cookies with 100k storage
- flash has good stuff for all the multimedia stuff
- flash has very good documentation and coding frameworks
- plugin available for almost every browser
- "which client is allowed to do what" is defined and very good solved
- Conclusion
- ajax can not replace flash / flash can not replace ajax
- both technologies helpful to enhance websites
- ajax is still evolving... browsers as well (http://whatwg.org)
- flash for multimedia, mobile, desktop
- flash for ajax
- solving cross domain (xmlhttprequest over flash)
- socket bridge
- interesting platform for rich internet applications
Technorati Tags: ajax, bestofswissweb, conference, euroajax, swiss, zurich
Abe Pazos says:
For startup time I would say Flash = 2, Ajax = 1. I have created database driven Flash interfaces for websites which occupy between 20k and 50k (with animation). Those load in less than a second with a fast connection, or in a few seconds with a modem. For developing similar things in Ajax you use some popular libraries, which sometimes weight between 100k and 300k, and take quite some time to startup, even with fast connections. Of course, if in Flash you add video, audio, huge XML, lots of graphics, etc, the startup time is quite slow, but that’s a design issue, not something inherent to Flash. Does anyone agree?
Why 0 for Flash debugging?
June 22, 2006, 00:13Jeremy Suriel says:
Flash debugging deservers a 1 at the very least. The Flash IDE has an integrated debugger with the ability to set breakpoints, watches, and step through code. I’m not aware of an AJAX IDE with an integrated debugger where this functionality is offered. I am however aware of 3rd party debuggers such as GreaseMonkey and Venkman. Clearly these solutions are not as straightforward to setup or as developer friendly as one that is already integrated within your IDE.
June 22, 2006, 01:04Markus says:
Thank you for that listing, but I get more points for Flash than for Ajax. What a surprise, I´m a flasher
.
I get 42 points for Flash and 38 for Ajax with one additional criteria:
Greetings
June 22, 2006, 14:23Ryan says:
I wonder why it is that Flash programmer prefer flash because flash is easier and quicker to implement… and Ajax programmers prefer ajax because ajax is easier and quicker to implement… we need better arguements.
This is a great article. At SpinWeb, we struggle to keep a balance of flash and ajax technologies. I myself am an ajax developer (my blog), but I try to find the best tool for the project.
Thanks for the summary.
June 22, 2006, 15:41Samuli says:
If for websites it is required for them to work without js also, why shouldn’t the same apply to Flash applications: they should work without Flash also. Otherwise the comparison doesn’t make sense, Fully-Ajax-sites/applications can justifiably be targeted for Ajax-compatible browsers…
June 23, 2006, 11:55Diego says:
Hey there. I have used both, though ajax just recently, i found flash easier to learn, the language is pretty much the same since both are based on ecma; but ajax is a little bit messy when it comes to code arrangement. Flash has a lot of features that can be simply implemented and are built-in; with Ajax you have to find a nice library (such as prototype, rico, script.aculo.us, etc) in order to get started quickly; otherwise you can build your own library and add it to the thousands of mini-frameworks out there.
November 28, 2006, 04:14About debugging: Flash is a lot simpler, Ajax depends on third party tools that are not easy to find (and sometimes not easy to install either).
It seems to be that Ajax is all about researching and finding the tools first, overcoming the learning curve and finally get your hands-on coding.
I’m currently learning more about ajax but I haven’t left Flash behind, I just don’t feel right about talking up about something before even testing.
I guess I must say that the development tool is determined by the project, and many times by the clients. However, I’m gonna tell you to pick either one, take a month to learn it, 2-3 months to master it and then see if you still want to learn the other thing. Farewell.
purifier says:
Thank you for the listing! I can get more for Flash.
February 8, 2007, 08:39airgle says:
I am flasher too. Getting more flash than for Ajax
September 24, 2007, 19:43Alex Bell says:
hello
October 10, 2007, 07:39I hear you all and completely agree.Flash is a lot simpler, Ajax depends on third party tools that are not easy to find (and sometimes not easy to install either.
Bye