Flash vs HTML5: a wrong debate

You’ve probably noticed a bit of a hot debate that is going on at the moment regarding Flash “vs” HTML5. Here I’m not going to defend Flash and Flex (since Flex is also concerned here) as well as I`m not going to say that HTML5 is the long awaited messiah that is going to bring a new web paradigm to your browser. I think that the situation needs to be seen from a more rational and complex point of view. There is no HTML5 versus Flash, and they are not really competing to be honest. Full Flash web sites are now almost not created. After the Flash fever at the end of the nineties many big corporations moved away from the “pure flash” website and are now using a mix of Flash and HTML instead. Certainly the Flash player is a wonderful step in the history of the web still we should admit that it is a plugin and a plugin is something you plug in, it is not native. But we shouldn`t forget that Flash cannot be replaced in many areas like games, desktop widgets, e-learning interactivities and many applications that require advanced animation API or techniques. A strong point in favour of Flash is that everything can be created in the Flash environment using the design tools and Actionscript. You don’t normally need to use any other programming languages except when you need to interact with server side scripting. HTML5 will require interaction between javascript, CSS and Ajax. A strong point for HTML 5 is that although HTML5 will require interaction between Javascript, CSS and Ajax, it will be running directly inside the browser without the need of a plugin and will therefore be more “natural”. The other part that is seldom mentioned is the continually increasing capabilities of Flash. As HTML 5 is slowly realized, Flash continues to innovate at a very fast pace so that it can continue to fill the gap between what HTML technologies offer and what developers want to build. You should see what’s coming in future versions! Flash will continue to complement HTML and help developers realize capabilities not possible otherwise. Can Adobe continue to innovate to fill the gap? Can Flash evolve fast enough to continue complementing HTML? Perhaps we will be debating HTML 6 vs Flash Player X and see whole new set of hot topics?