August 20, 2003
Work
Things are not going terribly well at work. I despise all of the projects I'm currently involved in, with the remote exception of one I can't talk about, and even that is only barely this side of contemptible. But without a doubt the worst is the one that occasioned my rant a few days ago, the one that sees my ignominious, kicking-and-screaming return to the world of Macromedia Flash.This project is basically a reskin of that game, with new content and graphics (plus a bit of extra stuff on the end to build a query string from the outcome) but using the same code engine pretty much as-is. In any other environment this should be a no-brainer, the most basic kind of no-bells, no-whistles repurposing job -- a small change to the Makefile, bung the new assets into a directory, that sort of thing -- and Bob's your uncle.
Alas, Flash doesn't work like that.
Within 5 minutes of launching MX and scoping out the codebase of the original, I was ready to hand in my notice. Indeed, I'm still ready. And this is my code! And only, what, 8 months since I last looked at it? But of course, the code itself isn't the problem; if it was, I wouldn't really have anything to complain about, would I?
Now, do me a favour and just pretend I've ranted on -- again -- about all the things that make using Flash such a godawful nightmare. Leave a mental space of, let's say, six paragraphs. I mean, I could actually write them in excruciating detail, but it would be pretty boring even for me, and you'd probably have to gnaw your own leg off to survive. So instead, use your imagination. Really go to town.
Good. Thanks. Well done.
The thing that amazes me about Flash is that it is so successful. I haven't met anyone who has used it who doesn't hate it, usually with a fair amount of passion. In terms of loyalty and appreciation, its user base makes Microsoft's look like Apple's. OK, it's coder-repellent, but -- according to carefully-cultivated reputation at least -- it's supposed to balance that by being designer-friendly. Yet I sit next to a designer who hates it even more than me and spends the day cursing its name. If anything, he is even more unhappy to have been dragged back to it than I am. And this hatred seems to be nearly universal. It's a product that time and again reduces intelligent users to weeping, drooling, suicidal maniacs.
In some ways you have to admire Macromedia here. Somehow they have managed to fill a niche so vital to someone that even the out-and-out loathing of every actual user isn't enough to stop it being a runaway hit. What kind of marketing genius managed that? Can you imagine what he or she could do with a product that actually had any value whatsoever?
More to the point, who are these someones to whom Flash is so vital? Are they allowed to vote and drive cars? Isn't it about bloody time they were all herded on to the fucking B Ark?
By a cruel twist of fate, today also saw the arrival at Ian's company of the person they've just employed to do a job Ian spent a fair bit of the last two months trying to persuade me to ditch my current position for. A real job I could have been doing right now, pretty much for the asking.
Jesus, my timing really sucks.
