In light of the upcoming Flash end-of-life date of December 31, 2020, It seems lots of people are having a #RIPFlash moment (specially on Twitter) so I suppose I’d say something.

It is dead as a technology, but Flash was still where I broke into more creative, innovative UI development – with Grafikonstruct, Gringo.nu, and Firstborn. So it will always have a special place in my heart. It is kinda useless today to show Flash projects today (the web and tech is so different), but I still insist on listing Flash projects on my portfolio.

We knew a lot of those would be short lived. A lot of those rode on the surprise aspect of a new interactive gimmick achieved by some new Flash feature or technique… and we ended up with some pretty cool experiences as a result! Seeing things like transparent video, or 3D, or sound experiences, or many other things on the web for the first time was amazing.

I’m not super nostalgic. Of course, there’s a lot of things the technology got right, and it was ahead of its time in many ways. I do think the tech we have today is better: more capable, more performant, larger reach. Languages, editing, testing is better. Sure, some of that is not easy, and the internet in general is not as “fun” anymore, but I guess it comes with maturity.

Pouring one for Flash today.