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JavaScript vs. Flash

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Oct 26.2008

I’m a new developer and I’m at a cross-roads. I’ve got my first big project and I’m trying to do an advertisement that rolls through a set of images. My question is, between JavaScript and Flash, which is being used the most and why?

JavaScript can do the job and it loads nicely. But, when I’m programming it, if I make a mistake there is very little to troubleshoot with. It either works or it doesn’t. This can be VERY frustrating.

Flash can do the job but I worry about potential users and current version levels. Do users update when they see that they don’t have the latest greatest version of something or do they panic and navigate away?

I am going to have to make a choice as to which road to take. Any comments would be really appreciated.

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@slaughtersOct 27.2008 — "...if I make a mistake there is very little to troubleshoot with..."

Use Firefox and download the Firebug addon. It is an "excellent" JavaScript debugger.

JavaScript tends to be more flexible, so you see it used more often in different kinds of situations.

Flash is nice for high media content sites. Web developers should definitely learn to use it, but for most sites Flash can be overkill, so I tend to lean more heavily toward JavaScript/HTML/CSS.
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@bntherauthorOct 28.2008 — slaughters

Thanks for the reply. Just out of curiosity, do you code from scratch or is there a generator that you use for JavaScript? I've seen some REALLY long functions and I'm always wondering if the developer actually wrote that from scratch or did it come from somewhere else.
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@slaughtersOct 30.2008 — I really don't use a JavaScript generator. When you first start off they are a nice solution for small tasks. You can use them to generate code and get an idea of how it all works

It's just when you need to do something slightly different from what the generator creates you tend to spend a *LOT* of time trying to make a square peg fit a round hole.

What I've done is create several small examples and code snippets over the years (http://stansight.com/WordPress/2007/11/08/trim-spaces/ or http://stansight.com/WordPress/2007/10/15/replacing-history/ ) . When I need to start on a new project a lot of times I can copy/paste a chunk or a line from one of them to help me get started.

As for long code - well you start with small functions, snippets, and techniques and then add on to them, so in the end they get a bit long:

http://stansight.com/WordPress/2008/07/29/floating-table-titles/
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@felgallOct 31.2008 — What JavaScript code that i have seen that was created by any sort of generator is generally at least five times as complicated as it needs to be.
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