Air is Dead

[72Pantera]

Let's face it guys. Air is Dead.  Look at the feature list for 4.0.  The pace of development and bug fixes have slowed to a crawl.

It's presented to us as a mobile development platform but you can't pick a video from the Gallery, read the Contacts database or Play a movie.  The forums are full of bugs and when Adobe rarely chimes in it's to ask us to vote.  Shouldn't you just fix bugs?

It's touted as a cross platform mobile environment but it's not listed in a single article comparing them.  No new developer in his right mind would program in Flash at this point. I did for ten years but I'm done. Tired of spending hours on bugs and workarounds.

I wish Adobe would spin out the two or three guys still working on it and open source it.  Maybe they could call themselves MacroMedia.

[esDotDev]

72Pantera wrote:

You can't write a business app (or even gamification apps).  ANEs are duct tape offered to cover the gapping holes.  With them you get lost context flashes, crashes and amateur support.

Damn, you can't!? I guess I better halt development on my 6th App built with AIR. I should probably also send Apple, Blackberry, Google and Amazon back the giant cheques they've been sending me for the last 24months.

Then I probably should switch to whatever superior platform does allow you to build these. Can you remind me what it is again?

[Phasor1]

Thanks for the comments Chris and Romil,

Personally I do not think Flash / AIR is even close to dead. In fact, in recent times has evolved a lot. But I think it lacks "something more" to deal with more guarantees and ease some types of projects.

For example , for me ( and I think for a lot of people ) is very important to integrate video into an application, an interactive development, or in a game, in a viable and easy way, both for projects based on "display list" and projects based on Stage3D , starling, etc. . (especially the latter).

If Adobe wants to focus on "video" and "games" should consider the integration of the whole and not two separate things that have much less value and possibilities.

I totally agree with what is intended with ANEs. The architecture that the technology provides must be flexible so that ANE developers enable other developers to make best applications. It is similar to the concept os Xtras in Adobe Director, which we have used in the past.

But I think the example of the integration of video into an AIR application is something that only Adobe can do, since most of limits and problems come from inside the runtime.

[User_Unknow]

Many people talked about that they dont understand.

What exactly do u want? List it here without "i think" and "i dont know exactly".... Just get your keyboard and type it into detailed list. Because everyone tells "i want new feature but i dont know what exactly. My shoes if white so air is dead".

[Colin_Childs]

http://www.beedigital.net/2014/01/09/air-wins-award-at-ces-for-the-best-mobile-application-product-i...

A "dead" product still winning awards? I think you're grasping at straws here Pantera. I'd love to hear how that native development is going lol

[User_Unknow]

Lol

Just played http://store.steampowered.com/app/219340/ that made with Adobe Air 3.7.0.1530 and this game play really cool on my 2560x1440 Display. Also 3.7 it's outdated but this don't break this game. It's working nice.

And I don't see any popup in game that telling me "Hey, Anton, it's me! Air! Please close this game because I'm dead".

[72Pantera]

Yes, and programs written in Visual Basic still run on Windows8 but Microsoft ended support for the language in 2002.  The difference in them and Adobe is that Micrsoft admitted they no longer supported the VB development environment.  Adobe on the other hand continues to sell Flash Pro and Flash Builder while turning the staffing level down to two guys and a dog.

[User_Unknow]

Panter, you have some problems with understanding?

Don't like - don't use. It's so hard to understand? During you are crying here - other developers making aps using Adobe Air and they don't know that Air is dead.

Back to your job, man. And don't tell anyone about that things that you don't understand.

Peace.

[72Pantera]

Anton, pump the brakes. 

This thread is about the status of Air and Adobe's level of development and maintenance.  At no point have I made reference to your intelligence or programming ability.  I don't know you and you don't know me. You should likewise refrain from personal references.

[iNDDev]

72Pantera, you are making two separate arguments here: that Air has problems, and that Air is dead.

About the problems, people using Air -- active, daily use -- are disagreeing out of practicality, not belief.  The argument that a product is bad, useless, or irrelevant does not seem reasonable if I find myself as proving otherwise on a daily basis.  Further, it doesn't seem a very novel point to make, either.  All my programming life -- which extends back to the Atari 400 -- I and every other programmer have had to find workarounds where the language ends.  This may change in the future, but there is no language that I can think of that meets all of the objectives you have laid out.  So you have to make due.  You talk to the language designers about solutions, and you continue to use the programming language until it no longer is able to meet the new goals that you have.  If I did not use Air from the belief that 'insufficient' is equivalent to 'unusable', I would have to stop programming entirely.

The second point -- the death of Air -- is a VERY malleable situation.  There are many, many factors that give viability to a language.  Python recently got a huge boost because Blender 3D cleaned up code and created much simpler access to the python code base.  Processing is making waves recently.  Javascript is losing it's luster, but has not lost any ground because of it.  HTML3 is treated mostly as a shell now, and hardly ranks as an educational concern.  Does anyone use Fortran, MSDOS, etc.?

I agree that it was and is a bad decision for Adobe to focus on HTML5 -- it will never have the power of Flash because there are too many companies fiddling with it.  But that is Flash, and this is Air.  Air is the mobile equivalent to Flash: code once, run anywhere.  That's still it's selling point.  Will Adobe allow it to die?  Maybe.  But if Adobe ever makes Air open source and free, there would be a dozen companies (probably Apache at the front) capitalizing from Adobe's astounding blindness.  (I don't think it will come to that, but that is my opinion.) 

Regardless of whether Adobe or someone else develops Air, Air and AS3 will always be the main cross-platform, cross-OS environment for the next 2-5 years.  For me.  For everyone else who has discovered the ease of wielding power through Air/AS3/ANE.  That is not a belief-based statement.  It is simply the case that either I cannot afford the price of entry into other languages, or that the other languages are no better, or that other languages simply fail to meet my PRIMARY goal: code once, run everywhere.

I appreciate your analysis, as there are weak areas in Air/AS3/ANE, and Adobe.  Thanks for the virbrant discussion.

[72Pantera]

iNDDev, thanks for the positive contribution.  Yes, I am making two arguments and then drawing a line between them.  I absolutely LOVE Flash.  I have a Masters in Computer Science and have spent a decade defending it because 'serious' programmers (still) consider it the language for spinning web logos.  I've written both games and real business apps in it.  I can honestly say i never hit the wall with it.  I was able to put movies in a square, control them via buttons (not on the player) and draw on top of them.  I've done the same with C, C++, and VB.  The concept of a programmable timeline was infinitely more powerful than any of the other languages.

To move with the times, I've ported my apps to mobile and made a strong argument at my company that we could port our business apps as well using the write once approach of Air.  Sadly, we've found it very lacking.  We 'wrote our way out' of some holes - writing more code than we should have needed to make up for shortcomings (I get that) but sadder still are the bugs that are part of foundation that we can't write around.

My frustration is that Adobe is sitting on arguably the best abstration for cross platform apps, a good dev stack and a very strong community but they've clearly surrendered and moved on.  No, they haven't announced end of life but they have de-staffed it to a criminal level when they should have doubled down and taken html5 head on.  They folded pocket Aces before the flop.

The extensions I suggest would take a small team of great programmers no time to develop.  Virtually every common element of the two mobile platforms that matter could be virtualized and expanded at compile or run time.  Another small team could continue to optimize the compile or runtime mapping to approach native app performance.  Introducing these business elements in no way would detract from the gaming direction that their remaining team has taken.  The world is redefining what an 'app' is.  It's executable code that runs in a square and can adjust to and take advantage of the services offered by the hardware it resides on and the internet that its connected to. 

No one has a better start on that than Flash/Air.  It could be GREAT.

But alas.  My overall point is that when they give up, it's over.  We can't code around the fact that they are barely fixing bugs.  The world is moving too fast and the only things that happen in life are the ones you focus on. 

If Adobe would open source Flash/Air it would be a major force in both web and mobile (again).  That's why I pined for MacroMedia.  To Adobe, Flash is a red headed step child.

[AsterLUXman]

Pantera, are you a troll?

If anything, the voiciferous responses you've been getting thus far in this thread should clue you in that Flash/Air is very much alive, and well, and for good reasons -- the main one being that it works !

As several people have pointed out, no language or API is ever perfect or complete, but what is surprising to me, is to hear all this negativity coming from some people ( Apple fanbois, typically ), considering that AIR is actually, surprisingly, good!  I have yet to meet a programmer, who having recently turned to AS3/AIR, didn't actually like it.

What you get:

• The syntax is very easy to understand ( unlike, say, Objective-C ).
• It is truly cross-platform: one code base will pretty much work on all major platforms -- with few minor adjustments, if any.  Android + iOS + Desktop ( Facebook 😞 no problem.
• Want to turn your code into a simple webpage?  Easy.  Porting AS3 to regular Javascript is very straight forward ( cut and paste for the most part ), since AS3 is mostly an enhanced version of JS ( everything JS should have been:  truly object oriented, and strongly typed  ).  Want your flash content to interact with the JS in the page it's contained in?  Easy.  Since it is mostly the same syntax and a lot of the same functions.  BTW, Javascript, as we know, is not going away any time soon!  'HTML5', for ex, is utterly dependent on it.
• It is widely in use:  heard of casual games?  Anything made for Facebook is Flash.  AS3 can and does handle big, multidisciplenary, projects.  There is a whole industry ( or two or three ) that uses and relies on it.
• The API is amazingly deep, due to the years Flash has been around, esp. if you are into graphics.  In many cases, you'd be hard pressed to do any better -- just different, maybe. Granted, occasionally you might need an ANE, but there are many out there, and this usually concerns ancillary stuff, like in-app purchases, or support for some of the more exotic sensors on mobile platforms (ex: gyroscope, compass ).  The point is that even in such cases when the functionality is not provided natively, there is usually one or more ways to make it work, and that's more than one can say of other dev platforms or frameworks.
• AIR updates are still coming at fast rate, though it has slowed down a bit lately ( due to its increasing maturity ), but it is still very much actively being developped.  And it's not just the API ( ex: Adobe Scout ).
• The community is vibrant and very helpful.

Add to this what others have pointed out:  no language or API is ever going to fit all of everyone's needs perfectly.  But with AS3/AIR, I think you stand a better chance than with most environments to find either a solution, or a satisfactory way around the problem -- without sacrificing the ability to target multiple platforms!

Also, it should be clear by now, that making apps, especially for mobile platforms, is not easy:  there is a lot that needs to be taken into account, and it can be frustrating, but that is true in any language or API, and this has more to do with the inherent complexity of apps and the subtelties + fragmentation of mobile platforms ( not a uniquely Android phenomenon, BTW ), than with the languages or APIs themselves.  Naturally, there will always be plenty of (s-)faddists and vested-interests that would have you believe that the grass is greener on the other side.  It's not.  Remember the promess of HTML5?  Many got burned with that one:  let's spend 3 times longer to do the same thing, and in the end, maybe give up because it just doesn't work ( and probably never will ) !

If there is a negative, here it is, as far as I can tell:

It seems to me that the leadership at Adobe has been listening to the wrong voices; failing to realize that Flash/AIR is not just very good, but a major pillar of their enterprise, as well.  Some examples:

• First, there was the pulling of Flash in the browser on Android ( not necessary, since it was already working, and a major argument in favor of Android -- I am not biased )
• Then, there was the ridiculous attempt at putting a paywall on Molehill ( for succesful developpers relying a bit too 'heavily' on it! ).
• Then, support for the high level shading language, PixelBender3D, evaporated, without a word.
• Finally, there was the total cloudification of Creative Suite!

I am sure I am missing a few, but it all amounts to a vision and leadership deficit at Adobe.  It  reminds me of a scene from "The Empire Strikes Back":  instead of 'Imperial troops have entered the base' over the P.A., it's more like 'MBAs have entered the base', and they are starting to tear things apart because they are not engineers/creators and have a myopic view of what constitutes value ( synergy is either too abstract or not immediate enough a concept for most of them, even though that is what generates profits in the long run ), and, not able to recognize true value, they can easily fall pray to hype, including the deceptive propaganda of a would-be competitor.

All this negative stuff is political in my op, and has nothing to do with the merits and viability of the Flash/AIR platform.  Which is why newcomers, in my experience, tend to be surprised when they discover how good AIR is...  because it is.

[rionero_in_volture]

I completely agree with panther and

https://www.facebook.com/occupyhtml5/posts/10151861946595679?stream_ref=10

the problem of AIR is Adobe.

Because html5 it's cool and flash is not cool (as said Jobs)

Adobe Flash NOT promotes technology, this worries us and makes it difficult to sell.

sorry for the bad English.

Ciao!

this is not nice ...

... samsung note:

Warning

We have been alerted that Adobe will no longer continue to support Flash on Samsung Smart TVs and BluRay players. As a result, Flash engines will not be supported in 2015 Samsung products. Going forward, Flash-related features will be excluded from SDKs released. Although Flash engines will remain to be equipped on existing Samsung products, including 2014 models, there will be no technical support from either Samsung or Adobe. Accordingly, any applications developed with Flash Air or Flash Player will no longer be acceptable. Samsung recommends using either HTML 5 or Javascript based applications if the application in question is Flash-based. Beginning on February 4, 2014, any Flash-based application, including any updated versions of such will not be acceptable for submission.

[Oldes]

Pantera, you are a troll!

You were asked to name some other technology, which you would use, if not AIR. You have many words, but not on this one. Is it PlayScript? Last blogpost from ex-flash guru Thibault (not even one year ago) is talking about PlayScript http://www.bytearray.org/?p=5228 but try to find PlayScript now.. it's simply gone. The Github repository is empty now https://github.com/playscript/ Last topics on Google's groups has titles: PlayScript : What happened to the open source version? and  What's happening with Playscript development?

So everything is relative.. for me AIR is alive and PlayScript looks dead (don't have to be, but I would be nervous if I would choose PlayScript for our current pruduct).

I can agree, that Adobe is not doing it's best in communication, but maybe they have some reasons - you can see on example above, that it can be worse.

Rionero, I hope Adobe will support AIR on Samsung's Tab 3 soon, that would be enough for me.. I really don't care about Samsung's or any other TVs.. I don't have any TV at home and never wanted to have, for me it's outdated technology. Also you just paste some note here without giving a source. And to display TV program on TV's overlay, I believe that HTML is good enough for that. Actually that was always the main purpose of HTML - to display Hypertext 

Pantera, I was not reading complete thread, but noticed, that you have some problem with URLLoader. Is it such a problem to find some workaround? If you have Master of Computer Sience (I don't have), you should be able to use raw TCP connection and do what you need (I could do that). Do you have the bug logged or you just complain for examples?

Cheers!

Btw, if mentioned Banner Saga is made in AIR, we have our AIR game between IGF finalists this year as well. So maybe AIR will die one day, but not this or next year for sure.

[rionero_in_volture]

- you are right .. link

http://samsungdforum.com/SamsungDForum/NewsView?newsID=45

- sorry but that you do not have the TV (although I do not have it) is completely irrelevant

- The problem is marketing (for me). This news is another stab at "Air".

- Adobe should focus on "AIR" for the mobile and totems,

abandon plugin for web and desktop.

Place of critical gaps, for example a solution to google maps and system messages.

Support windows phone 8.

Instead it does nothing.

- Officially announce that the AIR for mobile is VERY COOL.

Instead, it could pull the plug at any moment.

In your opinion, how many Adobe people are in "Air"? This is an important point. The software is time and people ... nothing else.

I I'm not complaining! I only regret that a good technology as Air die for mismanagement.

For example flexJs would be very interesting because it would exit the game Adobe.

Anyway, I took a look at Titanium ... looks interesting.

Since it Adobe is CLEARLY undecided on Air, you have alternatives to suggest?

Not PhoneGap course, maybe Adobe deletes it next year!

without controversy

peace

ciao!

[Oldes]

As I said, I don't see it as a big problem not to support TVs - at least for us, who are focused on gaming and so need GPU power under control. If you are gamer, you know, that to buy TV is not enough, even if the TV is large:) If you need to do ads, you can use HTML, when it's so popular now.

I agree that there is still a lot work to have AIR better, but still believe, that Adobe is not "undecided" as you say, and they are really interested to make it better. I don't believe they do nothing.

My opinion on number of people working on AIR is not relevant, but when I was attending Adobe MAX 2011, there was about 20 or 30 people from runtime team. Now it could be less, but I still think, that even one person can do great things. And maybe sometimes is less better than many. On the other side, Adobe is corporation and maybe there are people in HQ, who does not know, what is GPU. I can understand, that thay can look at AIR as redundant if there is enough other frameworks, which people can use - they will use another Adobe products like Photoshop in most cases. But somehow I believe it's not true and they are not so stupid.

Regarding alternatives, I don't have any now. I was asking Pantera to tell me some. Titanium looks like yet another over-complicated framework for making HTML/JS combo, probably with tools to simplify packaging on each platform. Nothing interesting for me. I would not touch on PhoneGap:) I don't need to make form-apps, co I'm fine. And if I had to, I would not probably used AIR anyway, although I like AIR and it does good job, where I need it.

But if you would torture me long enough, I see future alternative in projects like Red language - It's almost one-man project btw. Still very long way to catch AIR's functionality.

[rionero_in_volture]

I agree with you.

I love Air (flex) I like its elegance

I do not like javascript and html

Pantera is probably also of this opinion (otherwise it would not be so irritated).

But the flash programmers are hysterical at least 3 years ... it will mean something right?

the community of programmers for a platform are essential, for example WP8 was a disaster because programmers have not supported (a few app).

By the way I wonder why microsoft does not help to bring air in his platform: he would have thousands of games at no cost! including classics essential (for example candy crush)

CIAO!

[72Pantera]

Air developers, Adobe's response to this post and their recent update to the RoadMap puts the final nail in coffin. That's it? That's the Air Roadmap for 2014?  10 items and one of them is:

• Supplementary character enhancement support for the TextField control

Clearly, they only had nine and a mid-level manager made them make one more push to get the list to 10.

Even the Adobe employees who felt compelled to weigh in on this post couldn't muster any real evidence or enthusiasm for the platform - they cut and pasted from the product literature (written by marketing).

It's sad guys but the party is over.  Last man out, turn off the lights.

[iNDDev]

72Pantera works for Apple.  We can deduce this from the fact that the authoer is named after an Apple operating system. 

Also, this person is just messing with us.  This we conclude from the name being a cat that stalks and plays with it's prey. 

But the "72" means he -- and I say 'he' because it's is advertised as a man's car -- thinks that he is a fast, sporty model designed for power.  From this we draw out the idea that there is no need for the mindless triviality of normal life as a programmer . . . it's blazing speed or nothing!  Every day is dry and sunny and every road is hard and smooth!

All this to say, 72Pantera, enough.  You have said your piece, and made your point.  Enough.  You are not helping, you are not hindering, you are just a Debbie Downer who no one believes, and no one cares to respond to correct your fallacious claims anymore.  Go on and program instead of being a troll.

[chris.campbell]

Thank you Anton for posting the heads up.  For those that haven't seen it, here are what I considered the main parts that I added to the roadmap:

Flash Player and AIR focus for 2014

Adobe is continuing to develop and improve both Flash Player and AIR. As we progress forward and commit items to our quarterly releases, we will update the release timing for these features in this document. In 2014, we will increase the attention that we give to the following:

Security

Security remains our top priority and we will responsibly address security related issues.  In addition, we will continue to pro-actively investigate and implement changes to reduce the attack surface for Flash Player and AIR.

Quality and Performance

The Flash runtime components are used by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis for all facets of their online life.  Thousands of businesses depend on the Runtime for success in the market place.  We realize that our customers rely on rock solid stability and seamless performance.  We must solve critical problems when found and we will continue to focus on improving the quality and performance of the runtime.

New Features

The following features and capabilities are on our active product backlog and will be made available in the coming months.

• Final release of iOS packaging time reduction
• Flash Player – Chrome debugger
• AIR – Concurrency for iOS
• AIR – Gamepad support for iOS 7
• AIR – Game marketing and discovery
• Stage3D – AGAL 2.0 support
• Stage3D – Support for multiple render targets
• Stage3D – Anti-Aliasing for render textures
• Stage3D – New texture wrapping modes
• Supplementary character enhancement support for the TextField control

In addition to these items, we will also continue to evaluate feature requests made to our public bug database (bugbase.adobe.com) by our customers.

And then in the Mobile section I added the following

Adobe AIR is committed to supporting iOS and Android mobile platforms.  At this time we do not have plans to extend this support to new operating systems but we will continue to evaluate these opportunities going forward.

Let me give you some of my background.  My current role at Adobe is Product Manager and customer advocate for the Flash runtime.  This includes both Flash Player, AIR and our Gaming SDK. 

I started my career at Adobe 18 years ago as a QA engineer working on Photoshop 3.  I had been in QE for a while (First at a company called Geoworks and then at a hardware company called Adaptec) and I gained a passion about quality and performance.  I moved into development shortly after Photoshop 4 was released and while I was always interested in creating new features that directly helped our customers, I ultimately believed that we should focus on improving our existing quality and performance.  Sure, these weren't "sexy" or didn't give bullet points to the back of the box, but I felt that unless we nailed our existing and mature functionality with rock solid stability and performance, then it wouldn't matter what new features were added.

I've held on to this belief and while I was only one voice of the core team that decided our 2014 runtime strategy, it was a driving factor for my input.  I spent the majority of my time during 2013 listening and interacting directly with our customers.  That includes developers on this forum, our strategic partners, and thousands of end users using Flash Player and AIR.  While I heard requests for new platforms and functionality, the majority of the concerns were about quality and performance.  That should give you a hint on why I purposely put Security, Quality and Performance at the top of the list.

Does that mean I don't think we need to add new functionality?  Of course not!  The new feature list above is just the items I knew of that we had committed to internally and made sense to add to the roadmap.  That doesn't mean we won't add additional items, in fact you'll notice that I specifically added that we'll be looking at feature requests from the community.  We'll also be working on items critical for our partners.  As new ideas solidify I'll update the roadmap with periodic updates.

We appreciate your feedback and passion for the Flash runtime and we are absolutely committed to moving Flash Player and AIR forward.

Thanks,
Chris

[Joseph Labrecque]

Thanks, Chris. The Flash runtimes are core pieces of a MATURE and STABLE creative platform. As such; security, quality, and performance are essential aspects of such a widespread foundation. Can't build much upon a weak foudation... wheras a strong foundation can bear the weight of any fortress.

Can you possibly give us some poiters as to what AGAL 2.0 might entail? That's pretty major!

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

Chris,

I drop a line for you for all of mine (- remember the other post of mine: issue #1, and this is the issue #2 preview), just to say [and before speaking about mobile - today I'm still on desktop] that the enhanced microphone class seems to work with this iMac I'm using but it does not work well with Windows 8 of the other pc nor with AIR nor with the web plugin. (and I don't care anything else neither about why for w8.1... blabla)

I have to fight with skype, hangout and lot of other friends. (with them I should fight with my realtime videocollaboration tools... not on Adobe-side stuffs)

I'm of the idea that Adobe should develop some real-life software with Flash.

ps1 do you want to test my Application with which I'm conducting some test? please..

http://visualqnx.blogspot.it/

ps2 Where is Unicom by Adobe? I want to see if it works.

Thank you.

nb I do not work for Apple. In my community of colleagues I am known as a longterm Flash enthusiast. And I'm starting - after some years of forced pause from my work - a new long-term project with other parties and investors [= with money of other companies!]... based on Flash/AIR + my WIMS Engine Server [programming] technology. I'm an antenna for possible long-term troubles with Adobe. ps I had missed it: Lynch to Apple too.

mc

ps also issue #3 is coming..

ps adaptec is good. I bought several good scsi hard drives from adaptec in my life.

[72Pantera]

Chris, how many develoers are working on the Air runtime?

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

Chris, how many develoers are working on the Air runtime?

you have to shut up instead!

(at this question nobody will answer you. it is annoying)

[Joel_TPE]

Chris, how many develoers are working on the Air runtime?

I don't work for Adobe so surely I don't know. But one thing I know is that the NUMBER of people working for a platform will not determine the level of commitment. Please stop focusing on the number of developer working on AIR.

Python is created by a one man Guido van Rossum:

http://www.python.org/~guido/

Is Python a great language and still alive?

Samsung could buy Android first because they look at the number of developer when Andy Rubin approached Samsung (only 6 in the team), Sumsung executives laughed at it, today they have learned a lesson.

Read the story it is still fresh:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-Samsung-could-buy-Android-first-but-laughed-it-out-of-co...

One thing great about software is that good one one can beat thousands and rules.

Fill your heart with thank-giving and gratitude, Adobe has done and put a lot for you guys, learn to give thanks, then your life will fill with peace and assurance.

I will definately be assured that AIR is not dead and full of future, because when I use it I know, every quater update I know in my heart. Sometime I wonder developers still can use their heart to think instead just using their head to think, only if....else... statement in their brain.

I am thankful that the industrial is focusing on HTML5 including Adobe, HTML5 is a technology that will never go beyond Flash technology, AIR/Flash/Flex has become my secret weapon to compete and to create great app with minimal resources required that many don't realise it, eventhough you told them and show them, because they are just blinded and not blessed by it.

I am thankful that Adobe has kept AIR/Flash in low profile now, I love it in low profile.

Joel T.

[72Pantera]

Joel, I completely agreel

Just a couple of (the right) guys can do wonders and that's all the main thread of new development would need, but Flash is now big enough that you could easily have an equal number fixing bugs.  You could also have a couple adding the most commonly used mobile element classes like Contacts, Social, Push, etc. The fanboys will tell you that ANE is the perfect open approach (and some components may work) but for me, the ANE components I needed created an endless stream of lost context screen flashes that make my apps look amateurish.  It's a bush league solution - a cop-out by Adobe passed off as a feature.

I've run a large programming team in Silicon Valley and we had two times as many testers as developers.  By the time you do the permutations of platforms that Flash is on, its not trivial.  So, yes, small but not garage small.  Flash is a big eco-system.  I've pushed the 'number question' out of frustration, but you're right, its not the true measure and it's not required to know that Flash is no longer fully staffed or strategic to Adobe.  Read interviews of Shantanu Narayen and you'll see where the company is going.  It's not Flash.

The only hope at this point is to open source it.  This post demonstrates how passionate the community is.  Within a year it would not just be a contender but the preferred route (again) to rich content for web pages and mobile apps. 

That's the frustrating part, they folded their hand based on the potential of html5.  It's like conceding to Tiger Woods when he was 8 years old.  Sure, html5 is going to be a contender but they didn't even fight the fight.

That's what happens when technology changes hands.  MacroMedia would have fought to the last man.  So would the existing Flash community.