Tools for HTML 5

Question

Everyone keeps saying flash is dead, silverlight is dead, and the future is HTML 5. Most technical people I've talked to seem feel that this is a generally accepted fact. Just a matter of when the spec will be finalized, and when each major browser will finally incorporate all the individual features. But it seems to me there's a big elephant in this room: where are the tools?

• Flash. Maybe on it's way out, but it had one hell of a designer. It had drawing tools, layers, timeline support, tweening, etc. It made building rich UI and animations REALLY EASY, which is why it's everywhere. Without flash I'm assuming we turn to canvas? We can't be planning on doing all our UI in code? Where is my 'Canvas Studio MX'?
• Video. So we agreed on a totally open/free format with ogg vorbis. Sweet. Is there a good open source set of libraries out there for converting/authoring an ogg file?
• Javascript. If we jump on board the HTML5 bus, we're pretty much all agreeing that the engine runs only on Javascript right? Is there some really effective JS IDE out there? Notepad++ is good, but is there something that can make refactoring a really huge application NOT a PITA? And here I'm referring to the fact that JS is dynamically typed, and so today it seems really difficult to get A)Intellisense, and B)Refactoring Support(Rename Method, Get Reference Count etc.). Either the language needs to change, or we need a really smart editor.

Maybe I'm raving here, but I'm a web dev by profession, and I would LOVE to get away from propietary compilers and overcomplicated,convoluted 'super tools' that cause more problems that they fix. But these points seems like real problems to me, and I'm surprised they aren't being given more attention. Or maybe they are, and if so, please feel free to show me the light :)

Answer 1

Flash: There are a number of strong languages that do amazing things without the nice fluffy UI and timeline, layers and such. I'm sure one will come along, but is not a show-stopper, not do many people care right now - so no elephant (IMHO).

Javascript: There is no shortage of places IDE's where you can use Javascript. Sure you can use Notepad if you like, or else Eclipse, TextMate etc... I see an editor as an aid and not a dependency when refactoring code. JS has its problems but to date its proven (again, just my opinion) that it has more to offer to compensate for that.

Answer 2

Web developers come from a variety of backgrounds ranging from Computer science to Graphic design. The coding environment they use reflects this variety and whilst some coders are comfortable writing an entire application using only Textmate, some others prefer to work with Aptana, the Flash IDE or Dreamweaver ( no quality comparison here ).

I think your point is valid , if Flash is about to be replaced by HTML5 , the web developers who were using tools such as the Flash IDE will expect tools on the par with what they're used too.

Another way to look at your question could be to wonder if Flash's announced death isn't the death of a certain vision of the web. A vision led by creatives who , not comfortable with the pure coding approach , could nonetheless express themselves with Flash, which to a certain extent , hid some of the complexities of programming or at least made it easier for them to tackle.

Answer 3

I agree that there are some tools missing at the moment and as PatrickS mentions, it depends on your perspective and what you are used too.

• A website developer would be fairly happy at the moment. Not much changes for them. They keep the same workflow and as more tools become available they will be added to their environment - and besides, they can get by with just copying-n-pasting with notepad etc.

• An animator can currently not do much with HTML5. They require a tool such as Flash IDE. It must also integrate with packages such as illustrator. Could be a while before we see a stable, usable tool.

• An Applications developer (which is the area that I fall into) will probably try to avoid HTML5. Simply because JavaScript is not suitable for large applications development. Netbeans at the very least exists and appears to support things like code completion, refactoring etc which will help if you end up having to do some serious JS development- but I suspect it does not match Visual Studio.

• A games developer developing something of significance would have the same issues at the applications developer and animator. While yes you can make a game just through code, things like platformers, adventures games etc really need a Flash IDE to layout all the graphic assets. Likewise, for programming, JavaScript will be more pain than AS3 or C#