Thoughts on the Flash Platform

With MAX just round the corner and all the new announcements that are going to come out of MAX about the Flash Platform, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the Flash Platform.

Flash use to be the designers tool, making Skip Intro’s or banner ad movies, Macromedia grew Flash into a great tool. Turning it from a animators tool to the number one web front end technology.

Then Adobe came along and bought Macromedia, at the time I was purely a ColdFusion developer, and a lot of developers in the CF community were worried that Adobe would kill ColdFusion. As it has turned out ColdFusion is now bigger and better than it ever was under Macromedia.

With Flash Adobe have turned a leading web technology and created this platform around the Flash Player, which is fantastic for Flash/Flex developers.

Developing a platform is great for a company like Adobe, it means that developers who use one of their products can now work with the complete platform. Adobe can get and keep developers using their tools (and buying their products).

For me as a Flex developer having the Flash Platform has opened so much more opportunities for me. When I first started using Flex I could only create web based systems, now with the Flash Platform growing I can develop for the web and the desktop (using AIR). I don’t need to go and learn a new language (though I think knowing a new language is a good thing) I can be productive more quickly if I can use the skills I currently have to develop for other platforms.

If my boss at work decides that we are build a new desktop system, while we do have C# developers who can create amazing desktop systems, I always knew before AIR that I wouldn’t be up so speed quick enough to be able to build a desktop system at work. But now with Flash Platform extended to the desktop I can build a cool desktop system if asked (though we’d probably use C# for the moment).

Now at MAX it looks as though mobile is the next area that the platform is moving to. If you look at the session titles there are sessions on AIR for the mobile. This is again fantastic news, if I wanted to develop a mobile app I’d have to look at another companies technology a.g. Google’s Android. But with the Flash Platform on mobile I can get started working on mobile apps (hopefully AIR will be cross platform for mobile) using the skills I currently have.

Through the Flash Platform I have gone from a simple Flex developer building simple web based systems, to a web/desktop/mobile developer.

So thanks Adobe for growing Flash to the platform it is now and I look forward to see what comes out of MAX, exciting times ahead.