It’s 6pm I’ve just spent the last 8 hours being a flash developer, trying to hit a deadline.

I didn’t have time for 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10.

I leave 3, 8 and 9 to the web devs.

I know what a mashup is.

WTF?

2. Have you ever created a mashup?
No

3. Do you know CSS?
Yes
4. Do you use webmail regularly?
Yes

5. How many social networking sites are you on?
5 (Orkut, MySpace, ZDNet,hifive)

6. How many web applications do you use on a daily basis?
3(Affinitiz.com, Google Writely and Google Spread sheet because i dont have MS office installed on my PC)

7. Do you subscribe to RSS feeds?
Yes
8. Do you use SWF Object or UFO?
Yes

9. If you answered yes to the question above, do you know why you use SWF Object or UFO?
Yes

10. Do you blog?
Yes.

SO the grand total is 15

2. Have you ever created a mashup?
Yes I have used: Google Maps API, Google search API, FlickrPHP

3. Do you know CSS?
Yes.

4. Do you use webmail?
@mail on my Media Temple Server.

5. How many social networking sites are you on?
Facebook / MySpace

6. How many web applications do you use on a daily basis?
None.

7. Do you subscribe to RSS feeds?
You betcha.

8. Do you use SWF Object or UFO?
SWF Object

9. If you answered yes to the question above, do you know why you use SWF Object or UFO?
Best way to embed flash videos with version detection and JS backwards compatibility.

10. Do you blog?
Yes (it’s about music. But it is my blog). Mixtapesongs.com

* using flash 4 back in the day
* remembering the days before google
* advocating firefox over ie
* owning a MBP
* being addicted to facebook

and my latest

* having your own yahoo pipe that aggregates all things you into one customisable feed!!

haha, dont you just love the web!!

Regardless, though, I guess I cannot favor a dated personal opinion of my own over the reality of your current views as you’ve voiced them here. I have no reason to disbelieve what you’ve said.

As such I’m removing the section on @Media from the post. I won’t go so far as to recommend the conference to Flash people, but perhaps I’ll attend one in the future and see.

I’m really actually quite bothered by this. I’ve attempted to find some contact information so I can email you directly, but failed.

On the few occasions we’ve met, you have always greeted me with a smile, you’ve struck me as an intelligent, rational, nice individual and I know that mutual friends hold you in high esteem, which in turn rubs off on me. It is important to me what people such as yourself think of what I do.

I have a lot of respect for the Flash community, I don’t look down on it *at all* and I agree lessons can be learned cross-”community” (and *you* have taught me a lot about Flash). It’s quite possible I took a hard-line, devil’s advocate’s stance when I was talking to you – mainly to get more direct answers to queries I have. But, again, you don’t know me, and if you did you wouldn’t call me irrational or elitist. Aggressive in argument, maybe.

From a few minutes conversation, however much impact, to brand me as irrational, prejudiced, elitist, and having “a cancerous mix of a holier-than-thou attitude combined with a staggering ignorance about the last five years or so of Flash” is shocking and hugely ignorant in itself. You *are* wrong on all counts.

You don’t seem to believe me, but I’ll say it again – I am not anti-Flash. I certainly won’t subject anyone to “an irrational and vile hate” (harsh!) Keep in mind that I don’t speak at @media, and I don’t say to any of the speakers “right, we need some good Flash bashing here, people!”. Many of the speakers are those that you explicitly highlight as respecting, in fact. Are you suggesting that my “vile hate” will somehow rub off on their presentations?

You clearly have an image in your mind of what @media is like, but you haven’t actually ever attended one, have you? Even if my personality shone through across the event, just imagine for one moment that you have got me wrong.

I’m not trying to alienate Flash people, and I’m very sorry I’ve has any such impact on you. It is down to a misunderstanding. I want you to believe that, but it doesn’t seem you want to.

You’re right, we did only talk for a few minutes after d.construct and I don’t know whether you were drunk or not (possible, it was at a pub) but what I found offensive was how strongly you attacked Flash after I had spent an hour talking about how both communities have so much to learn from each other (which I still believe). Unfortunately, a few people in the web standards community have a cancerous mix of a holier-than-thou attitude combined with a staggering ignorance about the last five years or so of Flash. Thankfully only *a few* and not all.

Let’s just say that I talk to web standards people all the time and count some of my very best friends amongst them. Your attitude, however, only serves to alienate Flash people more. So yes, there’s no way I would recommend a Flash developer to attend one of your conferences only for them to be subjected to an irrational and vile hate.

It was two years ago, I don’t remember your exact words but the gist of it was as I stated. And, as someone who usually doesn’t dwell on things, let me tell you that your unwarranted attack two years ago apparently made its mark as it showed me (perhaps for the first time), the darker side of the elitist (and either ignorant or fundamentalist) attitude that I have since seen a couple of times from a very small number of people in the web standards community.

You’re not doing the web standards movement any favors by alienating Flash people. You definitely alienated this one and I hope that you at least don’t alienate future Flash developers. The two communities have a lot to teach each other and a lot to learn from one another but it won’t happen as long as they look down on the other.

Update: I just re-read what I wrote and decided to reword it to make it clear that those are *my* opinions based on how you appeared to *me*. Of course I cannot make a generic statement about how closed-minded or open-minded you are in general but you did come off as being very closed-minded on this matter. The reworded section will hopefully reflect this.

* I’m *not* “stanchly anti-Flash”
* You won’t find Flash on the list of topics because it the conference has always focussed around web standards. It has a theme, always has done, as do most conferences.
* I don’t recall ever saying “Flash-sucks-and-I-don’t-want-to-hear-any-differently” – I was quite possibly drunk (no apologies for that) – and whatever I said I certainly didn’t say *that*.

Thanks for personally categorising me as a very closed-minded individual. Do you always categorise people so harshly after mere minutes of conversation? Get to know me before you pretend to know what kind of person I am.

“@Media events to support his irrational and fundamentalist prejudice and nor will I be recommending the conference to Flash developers. Basically, don’t waste your money on @Media if you’re a Flash developer as it’s pretty clear that we’re not welcome there.”

That’s fine, but, again, I don’t know where you’ve got all of this from. I don’t have any irrrational, fundamentalist prejudices. No, the conference doesn’t cover Flash, but everyone’s welcome.

Did I bully you as a child or something?