First let me get this out the door. I'm a Flash developer. I extremely like the product; and I'm in favor of open standards.
While continuing my work and visiting various Flash sites on the web since the Flash SDK was released last year, I have seen and read about SO MANY different companies and their resulting products that cater to different needs of the web developer. Charts, executable players that interact with the user system, chat progs, low-bandwidth video, XML apps, etc. Now I'm not making a call for everyone to pick up Flash and develop. But rather make a case how development tools MAKE more widespread adoption of a technology possible.
I have hope that SVG could turn into something useful. But trying to make SVG compete with Flash in the immediate run, you have a snowballs chance in hell. I say this because Flash's current scripting language is getting pretty advanced and out there, and can make Flash work with databases, XML, other languages, and things I can't quite explain. The advancement track is steadily increasing and there's an increasing army of designers willing to learn.
I commend Adobe for working on SVG exportable products, it is only for the benefit of developers. But Adobe, like Macromedia are companies that cater to the developer, esp to the graphic designer. We want the tools that will make our work easy, efficient, and fast to make. If you get some serious development tools for SMIL animation, I'd be curious and experiment.
Instead, working SVG into specific areas (??, Adobe with Real ventures) could give it an auxiliary position in its uses. Handheld devices, and other applications. That way many designers who do use Adobe Illustrator (or any SVG export prog) can export SVG for diff. purposes.
We may not know what the future will hold. But XML itself in addition to open-source will help developers from different areas make apps that can work together, despite differences.
And this is the outcome I'd like to see, not some Flash uber Alles. Interoperability is the main goal. A unified standard is a nice goal, but unfortuantely sometimes not a realistic one.
Adam Clayton
Los Angeles, CA
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