Article:		SVG: A Sure Bet
Subject:		Missing the point
Date:		2003-07-17 08:32:42
From:		Tony MacDonell
The thing that really bothers me is the innate misunderstanding people have of the roles of these technologies. SVG will never be able to achive some of the functionality that flash files contain because the reality of the situation is this: "SVG is a transmission format for descriptions of vector information" Flash however, is an entire platform in which you develop Rich Media Applications and Presentations I have created hundreds of commercial projects with Flash for the web and for the desktop, and for the pocket PC, and for cell phones, and for playstation, so the point about going where Flash can't go is rubbish. The thing that this article fails to point out is where SVG really will succeed. Being a standard transmission medium for vector graphics information from one application to another. That is something Flash will never do, you are right there, but you are wrong in thinking that Flash is a competitor to SVG. actionscript-toolbox.com posted source on Rendering SVG in the Flash Player. And it is likely that in the future the Flash Player will support it natively, because the Flash Player is the most widely adopted vector graphics renderer out there. It makes me laugh when I think that in the next couple years, all of these SVG people that have been bitching at Flash, saying SVG is a Flash Killer, could suddenly find themselves using the Flash Player as their main display plug-in. Flash will eat SVG. By that I do not mean that it will kill it. It will simply absorb SVG as another feature of the Flash Player. The two technologies will be complimentary. And if this happens, it could potentially be the best things that ever happened to SVG. If you can't beat em, join em.

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• Missing the point
  2003-07-17 18:03:57 Paul Prescod [Reply]
  
  Tony says: "Flash however, is an entire platform in which you develop Rich Media Applications and Presentations"

  
  Well, my presentation is available in SVG here:

  
  http://www.blastradius.com/svgopen2003/

  
  And SVG can embed animations, sound and video. That sounds like Rich Media Applications. So SVG can do Rich Media Applications and Presentations. You might want to look into SMIL.

  
  Tony says: "The thing that this article fails to point out is where SVG really will succeed. Being a standard transmission medium for vector graphics information from one application to another."

  
  The article says: "Many SVG importers, exporters, and converters are already available. Users increasingly expect every graphics manipulation or visualization program to support SVG import and export." It also says: "SVG will also become the interchange syntax for all sorts of industry-specific or corporation-specific data visualization systems, from maps of oil fields to architectural designs to molecular models."

  
  Tony says: "I have created hundreds of commercial projects with Flash for the web and for the desktop, and for the pocket PC, and for cell phones, and for playstation, so the point about going where Flash can't go is rubbish"

  
  Is Flash going to be integrated into Linux desktops? Is Flash going to be a part of the 3GPP standards? Is there a project to integrate SVG into X-Windows.

  
  Tony says: "It makes me laugh when I think that in the next couple years, all of these SVG people that have been bitching at Flash, saying SVG is a Flash Killer, could suddenly find themselves using the Flash Player as their main display plug-in."

  
  Tony: "And it is likely that in the future the Flash Player will support it natively, because the Flash Player is the most widely adopted vector graphics renderer out there."

  
  If Macromedia produced a standards-based media platform I would be overjoyed. I don't care if it is called the 'Flash Player' as long as it consumes a subset of SVG, SMIL and Javascript comparable in size to the competitive SVG implementations. If you want to treat that as "Flash wins" that's fine. In my opinion, that would be everybody winning.

  
  But to be just a little childish: what could more vividely prove my point than Macromedia adopting Flash? Standards can go places that proprietary languages cannot. Macromedia can support SVG and be on an equal ground with everyone else. Adobe cannot create a Flash viewer and be on equal ground with Macromedia. Thus, one of those scenarios is feasible and the other is not. That's why SVG will "win" in the sense of being much more ubiquitous than Flash.