This document summarizes a talk given by Rik Lomas on web development trends. It discusses how the difference between JavaScript and Flash is diminishing, thanks to improvements in JavaScript. It also notes that all client-side code is now open for anyone to view and modify, unlike closed platforms like Flash. Finally, it promotes building games and applications using standard web technologies instead of Flash or native apps.
6. “Have I told you about my Uncle Alf?
He had two tellies, he had one that the sound
didn't work on, and one that the picture
didn't, but both together, it worked.
So as long as he was watching the same
channel on both, sound came out of one telly
and he'd watch the picture on the other.
And, he slept in a rubber dinghy.”
— Karl Pilkington, e Ricky Gervais Show
20. “...it’s basically a real time game that you can play
along to footy matches while you watch them. You
can play on an iPad or your laptop.”
“Ah, right, so it’s an app?”
“Nah, it’s a normal website.”
“But Flash doesn’t work on the iPad.”
“It’s just normal code.”
“Oh... didn’t realise you could do that.”
* Hello, I’m Rik\n* In January, I started an agency called Lomalogue, specialising in front-end web development work\n* One of my main clients over the last year is...\n
* One of my main clients I’ve had whilst running Lomalogue has been Picklive. This is a video from Picklive’s live game interface\n* You only play the Picklive live game interface during a televised football match.\n* Players in the game respond to real life players in the match.\n* The user picks 3 players from either team and can sub in and out during each 7.5 min game.\n* User gets points based on what their players do. 1 pt for pass, 20 for goal, minus for actions like fouls\n* In fact, some of the users don’t even watch the football match that we play along to, they do it for the entertainment.\n* The game works in all modern browsers including the iPad.\n
* There’s a little movement based about “two screen”, based around games and sites where users play along to live events, e.g. sports, TV shows, mass media events.\n* People watch more TV now than they did five years ago\n* But a lot of people now use the internet alongside TV shows, especially real time streams like Twitter, Facebook and forums\n* X Factor, The Apprentice, I’m A Celeb, Question Time\n* Doesn’t have to be real time shows, Eastenders\n* Using my experience of developing Picklive to talk about the up and downs of developing web games\n
* There’s good and bad news about making games for the Open Web.\n* So I’m going to start with a trivial quote from Karl Pilkington.\n
\n
* By web development today, I mean how we build websites at the moment.\n* Supporting old browsers, not cutting edge technologies.\n
* On the left, we have the Open Web technologies\n* On the right, we have technologies that we still currently need to support our Open Web tech\n* And together, they work to make what we have today.\n* Audio and Video are still heavily reliant on Flash\n* Try telling a client that they need to upload various versions of the same video because of licensing issues.\n
* So should we see Flash the saviour of the open web?\n* Seeing as we have to rely on it for functionality that we want from our website.\n
* We have to admit that Flash will always be better at some things by its very nature.\n* It’s plug-in based so isn’t dependent on browser releases.\n* It’s cross-browser and cross-platform so no problems with compatibility\n* It’s direction is only decided by Adobe.\n* Should we use Flash to make games instead?\n\n
* Actionscript is a functional, prototypal programming language, perfect for event based interactions\n* AS is a dialect of ECMAScript, just like Javascript.\n
\n
* Thanks to massive pushes from all the browser vendors, even Microsoft\n* As browsers update with a faster pace now, there’s quicker deprecation of older browsers.\n* Chrome updates every six weeks now.\n* We now can easily do push notifications (websockets), 3D graphics (WebGL), geolocation, multi-threaded JS (web workers)\n* So eventually we’ll get...\n
* To me, HTML5 movement is a lot more exciting than the Web 2.0 movement a few years ago, a lot more technological changes\n\n
* The great thing about front-end development is that you can see how other coders do things.\n* Pulling things apart and seeing how they work is a lot more fun than following tutorials\n* How many people read manuals first?\n* Don’t minify your code unless you need to. It stops other people learning from you.\n
* Browser based coding isn’t easy.\n* We have to not only test our work in different browsers, but different versions of different browsers and different versions on operating systems.\n* Also, Making games requires a different mind set to normal web site development.\n* Being able to view source code plus tools like Firebug makes not only our lives easier but the new generation’s lives easier\n
* JS is getting popular and mainstream\n* We’re no long the uncool kids\n* 18% of all projects on Github have a main component of JS\n* In part due to Javascript libraries and plug-ins.\n* jQuery has played a massive part in getting front-end developers to use Javascript\n* As it uses native CSS selectors as functions\n* Also in part, thanks to SSJS, node.js, helping back-end developers.\n* It makes sense code sharing and context switching\n\n
* And of course, there’s a price.\n* This is obviously a big advantage for the Open Web. Anyone can do it. For free.\n* Doesn’t matter who you are, how much bandwidth or how much money you have.\n* You can code in any text editor and test in any browser.\n\n
* By very nature, first class code because its native\n* More promotional (however Mozilla and Chrome App Stores are coming soon)\n* Development means separate code bases. One for Apple, one for Android, etc\n* More code bases = more developers \n* Non-instant deployment, one Apple store approval took 429 days, critical updates\n\n
* Isn&#x2019;t it amazing how surprised Thomas was when I tell him you can build a game that works on not only browsers, but iPads and mobiles too, and isn&#x2019;t in Flash?\n* Thomas doesn&#x2019;t really care how I build games.\n* Thomas doesn&#x2019;t care about WebSockets, WebGL, CSS transitions\n* If I told him &#x201C;you know that game you play at work on IE? you can play that on your phone in the pub, then on your iPad when you&#x2019;re hungover&#x201D; <<< A great reason to build open web games.\n* We shouldn&#x2019;t build &#x201C;open web games&#x201D; but &#x201C;games&#x201D;\n\n
* Predictions\n* There&#x2019;s no reason why an open web game couldn&#x2019;t become as big as Farmville, Minecraft or Angry Birds.\n* I&#x2019;m going to predict that an open web game will get big in the next year and make someone a lot of money.\n* And I really hope that it will be someone in this room.\n
