Larry wrote, in part: "In the big picture, Shockwave failed as it wasn't adopted by a significant number of web developers and it didn't result in significant new sales of Director. DHTML has the ability to deliver on the promises of Java - true cross platform, robust performance, etc."
I've got to respectfully differ a bit here. Shockwave is the most popular plugin/control on the web, followed closely by the various RealAudio/RealMedia players. (The Adobe Acrobat plugin might also be in this group, although as a documentation plugin it has a slightly different audience than the rich-media plugins.)
There are well over 18 million Shockwave-enabled browsers. This is about twice the size of the audience for America Online. From the Macromedia website alone there are over 100,000 successful Shockwave downloads each day, and Shockwave is also distributed by Disney Blast, the Microsoft Network, and other licensees. Shockwave is also included on all new PCs and Macs, and is distributed on the ubiquitous AOL CDs too.
Dynamic HTML *does* have promise. Beyond offering lightweight animation and interactivity, it can also tie together the various components in a page, with the net effect of enabling a much higher overall level of responsiveness than before.
But Dynamic HTML and the various browser scripting languages will not be suited to all tasks. Like Java, DHTML suffers from the "single instruction, multiple interpreter" problem -- a single file can act very differently depending on the particular playback environment. It will not have the performance or predictability of native code. The two technologies overlap a bit, but I believe that designers will find, more and more, that they complement each other in design for the web.
As a full-blown nerd, I find these developments to be very exciting. 8)
(nb: I'm in tech support, and know the tools, technologies, and what customers are doing with it. But I know less than you do about the stock market, and I keep my distance from sales and marketing concerns. My scope is limited... hope the above is of interest, though.)
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Tech Support |
