Recent Events and my non-reaction
I’ve been using Flash since 1999 or so. It’s responsible for my career and any small bit of fame and fortune I might have. Most of the people I count as friends have come from the Flash community. Flash will always be something more than just a technology to me. I think Flash has seen its golden age and is probably unlikely to see such times again. But it will continue to fill several gaps, I’d guess for several years to come. The areas that Flash is focusing on now – 3d gaming, advanced video, and mobile apps – are not areas that interest me very much. So I am currently more interested in other technologies and activities. And that’s all I really have to say on the subject.
In the past week, the layoffs at Adobe and the dropping of the Flash player on mobile browsers have a huge storm in the Flash community, and wider technology community as well. Of course there are the people who have always been anti-Flash, now predictably dancing in the streets and tearing down statues, rejoicing that Flash is dead. Then there are many in the Flash community who feel personally betrayed by Adobe by this move, shouting things like, “Flash is dead, and Adobe killed it!” Then there are those insisting this is a great move for Flash that will help it move forward.
To my ears, this is all a whole lot of noise and whining. Two things I read last week resonated with me. One was a friend who said, “Twitter is like a license to be an asshole.” The other was this graphic that’s been floating around:
In the first part of my life, I was painfully shy. I don’t consider myself shy anymore, but I think most people who know me personally would say I am in general a quiet person, at least until I know you really well. Having a blog and twitter and other social networks has given me a voice that is louder than one I’ve ever had before. Like many others, I’ve used that voice carelessly a lot. But more and more I find myself consciously and purposely being more reserved about it. Holding back on tweeting the first snappy remark that comes to mind, or banging off a blog post that expresses my outrage at some situation. I find that later I’m always very glad that I held back. The world isn’t going to fall apart if it doesn’t hear my take on recent events right this minute.
Anyway, I’m taking some time off twitter and most other social networks. It all just sounds like nails scraping on a chalkboard to me. I’m going to try to blog more, as that’s something I’ve found I’ve been doing a lot less of. And I intend those blog posts to be some useful bit of information, not just noise and opinions on the latest technical scandal.