Hi Andy, This is all my personal opinion.
Thank you for presenting yet another "The BBC isn't supporting my favorite format" moan. > Flash may be running at startup I don't believe it does this. > If you can't see what code is doing to your machine better assume its doing something bad to it. Yes, if your completely paranoid. > Javascript (needed for AJAX) is implemented differently across browser Yes, but there are ways and means of getting the % of users who can run it much, much higher than the Java plugin. Hence why the majority of webpages use javascript in some way but hardly any use Java applets. > Who is responsible for these decisions? Ultimately it is probably the developer of the application, although they are bound by the Standards & Guidelines [1]. In this case we are talking about the Multimedia Plugin-in Content Standards document [2]. This standard shows that "Multimedia plug-in content SHOULD only be used to extend the user experience of sites on bbc.co.uk, to raise their overall appeal, or to promote the brand." and that traditional uses of Java "can be achieved in JavaScript or Flash, and these SHOULD be used due to their lower user system/security requirements.". The people responsible for the standard have their names at the bottom of the document [3]. The flash player is more prevalent than a Java plugin (98.3% vs 86.9%) [4]. The Java plug-in (at least the one presented to me) is about 5.5x the size of the Flash plugin (7.1mb [5] vs 1.3mb [6]). My personal experience is that whilst they have their applications, Java applets are slow and clunky. They suffer versioning and browser implementation issues, plus load VERY slowly on the majority of user's platforms as "migc63" describes. > Are they actually qualified or did they pull somebody in off the street I believe the BBC's fair selection policies prevent it from doing this. You may be interested in the "How do we recruit" document [7]. Thanks for demeaning our jobs though. J [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/ [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/desed/multimedia_plugins_flash. shtml [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/desed/multimedia_plugins_flash. shtml#s5_about [4] http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/ [5] http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_xpi.jsp [6] http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=Sho ckwaveFlash [7] https://jobs.bbc.co.uk/fe/tpl_bbc01.asp?newms=info25 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andy Sent: 04 March 2007 22:32 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Flash required? On 04/03/07, Gordon Joly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Switch to Ruby on Rails and AJAX over and above Java? Ruby is server side, unless I am mistaken. Thus would not need to be installed locally, so a good thing there. Javascript (needed for AJAX) is implemented differently across browser. not even sure the XMLHTTPRequest function, or whatever it is called, is standardised or if websites just pray all vendors implemented it the same way. As for Flash being faster than Java and your system freezing when loading java. Where the systems mutli-platform or did you just try Windows? An OS is supposed to allow multiple processes to run concurrently, if something hangs then either part of your program was written badly, e.g. the browser is waiting for Java to complete start up at the expense of rendering, or the OS kernel Scheduler is not doing it's job. While it is waiting for the disc to fetch jvm it should be running the other programs. Flash may be running at startup, some programs do that. It makes them look quick but you lose out in memory. And once your machine resorts to Virtual Memory your machine will crawl. I suggested Java over HTML/CSS/Javascript as Java is more versatile. Java will also run on many more platforms than Flash. You can even get embedded versions of Java. Java is a more full featured language than javascript, or I might just not know Javascript well enough. And of course security wise Flash is a no go area. If you can't see what code is doing to your machine better assume its doing something bad to it. Of course I could run flash in a VM but the overhead just to run the BBC webpage would be completely unacceptable, even with kernel level acceleration (I don't have native support for VM on my CPU, unless I upgrade). Again the BBC is taking a one-vendor approach when there are multi-vendor multi-platform alternatives. Who is responsible for these decisions? Are they actually qualified or did they pull somebody in off the street (wouldn't be the first time the BBC did that either). Andy - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
