This week, there was an A List Apart article called Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet. When I first started learning about Web Standards, I hated flash. I thought that it was really all just bells and whistles and nothing useful. As time has passed, I have realized that there are some situations where flash can be useful.

First, there was the sIFR: Scalable Inman Flash Replacement. Earlier this week, there was the introduction of swfir: swf Image Replacement. I think this technique seems really cool, and there are definitely situations where I would be interested in using it. Just adding a simple drop shadow and rotating the image a few degrees really add a nice effect to the image.

My only problem is that I think it may be overused. I hope that people don't get so flash-happy that they use it for all images on their site. The same goes for the sIFR technique. I hope that people only utilize these techniques in moderation, and we don't see it all over the place. I have a feeling that we are going to start seeing more and more flash out there, and I really hope that we don't see it used the way it used to be. I still cannot understand how a person can build an all flash site and feel good about themselves. Does it make them happy that people with screen readers would have problems using their site? I guess it must make someone happy, since people are still doing it.

As a side note, I have played around with the swfir script, and it was very very easy to implement.

The Rise of Flash Again