Dearest Flash,
It's come to my attention that even in the past year, people have continued to be unkind to you, calling you useless, annoying, and the bane of a content-driven internet. I've heard that your reputation continues to be marred by certain miscreants who
abuse you and say all manner of
insult against you. It's not your fault that you've been mishandled and forced to do things that you were never meant to do. So I write this letter as a reaffirmation of my love to you, letting you know why I will continue to love and support you.
First, I love how you continually keep yourself fresh, changing on almost a yearly basis. I know that most of the arguments against you are based on who you were 5 years ago, when you were still dressing in Actionscript 1.0 and using those silly shape tweens (I've finally forgiven you for those). Over the last few years, you have won over this programmer's heart with object-oriented modeling, unified event handling, and a new virtual machine. Even your graphical advances like blending effects and custom anti-aliasing have made the designer in me smile. Such versatility has great potential and I've even seen it at work in more complex websites like
Road Runner's (to be honest, I couldn't believe it was you at first).
Furthermore, you have brought so much beauty and yes, even accessibility, to many industries. Who would ever use
YouTube if it required Real Media Player? Or who would visit
Kongregate only to find Java-based games? Where would I get my creative fix if not for
TheFWA.com? You continue to make photography
vibrant and education
fun. You've even visited the business sector, providing clean visualizations for Google Analytics and
Yahoo Finance.
Now I realize that you're not for everyone and that many people use you in all the wrong ways, forcing you to be something that you're not. Know that I will never do this to you, especially since you have helped me pay many bills and you have given me more creative release than most projects do. And now that you're in Adobe's family (I have a long history with them), I'm sure our relationship will continue to grow and flourish.
Always Yours,
S. Ryan P.S. I've heard that some developers have left you for this new gal named
Silverlight. Rest assured that I will not be so hasty, and will be sticking it out with you whom I know and trust...