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Comment by wallflower | Hacker News Reader

I will reserve judgement until I see the HTML5 output, as generated code has a track record of being either a) unmaintainable, unmodifiable or b) doesn't work very well.

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It doesn't matter what the generated code looks like because you will only edit it in the Flash IDE. In fact, its users want it be completely obfuscated for performance reasons and to make reverse-engineering annoying.

It'll matter if it's slow, bloated and buggy.

If that's the case, you wouldn't use it in the first place, regardless of if it's unmaintainable or unmodifiable.

Good point. I think Flash developers will be more keen to use CS5's new export feature if there is a poor chance of reverse-engineering or modifying the exposed HTML5 code.

The FXG format basically describes the layout to pixel precision. Anyone using the HTML5 export would have to be willing to expose their layout secrets.

Looking at the code from the video, it looks like they're just putting out an FXG file (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FXG) and have a JS library to read that format and execute it on the canvas. This is actually very interesting because then the Flash plugin is really just boiled down to a Javascript library (which some folks have already done before with the SWF format).

Combined with HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, there's really only webcam and cursor access that I can think of missing in this kind of implementation. Cool!

It can't be much worse than the bug-ridden Flash runtime which is horribly slow and has generations and generations of compatibility hacks trying to provide, except the 2D vector graphics, pretty much the same functionality as browsers and JavaScript do.

This is a good thing: Adobe/Macromedia's expertise on the authoring tools combined with a good open platform instead of their proprietary backend. I have no complaints against the former, and if the latter will work out it's just a plain good move.

Good point. How easy will it be to edit the output to add the different browser "hacks" to make sure it renders similar across different browsers?

If you consider the output "object code" there would be no need to edit, let alone roundtrip. You don't edit the object-code or byte-code from your compiler either.

Naturally it's Adobe's job to handle the quirks when generating the output. I would be surprised, if forcing developers to edit generated code even crossed their minds. It just doesn't make any sense.

At the SXSW Flash vs. Canvas panel it was mentioned that canvas has virtually no browser quirks; all browsers that implement it implement it correctly.

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