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Comment by andrewvc | Hacker News Reader

This raises the question, who can afford to build an internet application in flash these days? It seems that making heavy use of flash in any new product would be a big mistake.

Edit: s/begs/raises/

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There are still some things you can't do in HTML, eg. Google Pacman used Flash for sound because the HTML5 <audio> tag couldn't provide reliable timings. Google Wonder Wheel is in Flash (despite having had various HTML5 prototypes floating around) because FF/Linux's <canvas> performance is atrocious, and IE6-8 excanvas.js performance is borderline at best.

That question is raised, not begged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Just like how "mad" became "angry" instead of "crazy" in American English, or how "bade" more often rhymes with "fade" instead of "sad", the meaning of "begging the question" is becoming "begging one to ask the question".

It's a battle even less worth fighting, because "begging the question" in the old meaning doesn't serve any really useful purpose that can't be served more clearly by "assuming the conclusion" in most cases, and may itself be the product of a mistranslation from Greek to Latin to English. See: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290

I understand your point and have sympathy for it, but I just can't go along with it. I know it's just the grumpy old man in me, but I still prefer to push back (gently, I hope) against the misuse of words and phrases.

I think you mean "against the use of words and phrases", as it is not a misuse to give them their current meanings. ;)

This is rapidly turning into Humpty-Dumpty-ism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#In_Through_the_Lo...

For what it's worth, there's still a huge advantage to using Flash for games. With the current state of the tech, you couldn't do FarmVille in HTML5.

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