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So, if you are unfortunate enough to follow John Dowdell's blog you start to notice something. I could just tell you, but then you lose the fun of discovering it for yourself. Let's take a look, shall we? You all recall how in the run-up to Flash 10.1, in particular, Flash 10.1 on mobile devices, he, and Adobe were all about the magic, and all about how wonderful the world would be? Let's look at some of the more choice bits from that, and other posts:

The Open Screen Project seemed a near-impossible challenge two years ago… to not only engineer a consistent display engine across workstation, pocket screen and home screen, but also to garner the industry support to implement this at a deep level, integrated with the hardware. I have never seen a software initiative with such ambitious goals, such deep and widespread support from partners, all implementing new things in concert with each other, floating target synch’d to floating target. Player Engineering has done a gargantuan job — no other group understands the new class of devices as well as they. The business coordination has also been amazing. Someday someone will write a book….

To finally see the results on realworld devices is very gratifying… low-cost tools available to nearly anyone in the world, communicating as they wish with the rest of the world. It’s like the first woodblock printing of books, or the first radio signals… after this achievement, the world will simply be a much different place.

Wow, that's pretty magical. Or is it?

There are challenges ahead… we need to not only adapt our existing work for this new class of universal pocket device, but also to develop the new types of applications which will be most useful, once anyone’s screen can call up any information anywhere, can convey voice and video from friends anywhere, where the local environment itself can be augmented by your networked pocket device.

(Can someone at Adobe teach Dowdell about run-on sentences and why they suck?) Hm...that doesn't appear to be magical, that appears to require some actual work. But isn't Flash 10.1 supposed to just work everywhere?

According to this bit from his post on the Adobe Q1FY10 Call, yes:

With general availability expected beginning in Q2, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project enabling uncompromised web browsing of expressive content, high definition video and rich applications across multiple screens including desktops, smart phones, net books, internet connected DVD, new tablet devices and other consumer electronics.

Let's reiterate that bit again, only with a bit of emphasis added:

With general availability expected beginning in Q2, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project enabling uncompromised web browsing of expressive content, high definition video and rich applications across multiple screens including desktops, smart phones, net books, internet connected DVD, new tablet devices and other consumer electronics.

That seems clear. You won't pay a price for Flash on mobiles. You won't have a lesser experience with Flash 10.1. It will be uncompromising. Flash 10.1 will enable this. (Yes, I know, CEO hyperbole, but when Dowdell is demanding people talk the way he wants them to, well, he can just suck it up when others expect the same.) That was pretty much the party line from Adobe. "Uncompromising". "One format, any screen". 10.1 was going to be nothing but magical unicorns. Of course, that was bullshit. There's no way any team can, in a single release, fix all of Flash's problems. Shit, they haven't fixed much of anything on the Mac or any platform other than Windows, yet, we're supposed to believe that 10.1 will give us "uncompromised" experiences wit this consistent display engine across all levels of screen. What neither he, nor anyone at Adobe talked about, of course, was that there'd be not just a little, but rather a shit-ton of work to do this.

However, Ol' Dowdell has created, or helped create this "magical future of Flash 10.1", even though I will guarantee no engineer ever promised him that. So he's backed into a corner, and he's not good at dealing with that.

When confronted with the inevitable disconnect between fantasy and reality, when faced with actual problems with Flash on mobiles, what does Dowdell do? Blame it all on everyone and everything but Flash. Specifically, blame the negative reaction on Apple, and "Apple fanboys", which are his Oceania:

But the furor… that was something else. After a weekend of great reports on mobile Flash in the wild, some of the Monday morning headlines on Techmeme were horrid: “Flash Kills Browsing”, “Flash Bogs Down Android”, “It Is Terrible” and more. This cluster was started by the usual set of Apple-oriented sites crosslinking to push something into Techmeme, and then once this cluster was established, Monday morning commercial blogwriters linked into it for the hits.

Of course. It's all the fault of Apple "mactards". (His words. Here, from his twitter stream: Congratulations @dportela ! You are the first person to convince me to start blocking off the mactards who wizz dumb rejoinders into stream. I'd link, but I don't trust the fucker to not have deleted it.) He plays up this theme:

I don’t hold Brandon responsible for this — he’s enthusiastic and just said what he saw, which is legit. I can understand the need for Apple sites to link to it with negative headlines — they’ve seen the central part of their business knocked out by superior performance and need to compensate somehow (even if foully). And I can also understand the clickbloggers making dramatic headlines — “if it bleeds it leads” still fits. They’ve brought about needless and useless perception damage to Flash, but I can understand the motives that drove it.

This doesn't even make sense, but, once again, it's Dowdell. He has his perpetual enemy, and it's Apple. Anything negative about Flash? Apple. Of course, he completely ignores the problem that PocketNow was talking about, because it doesn't matter. He, in his head at least, has shown that there is no problem, it's just Apple's "shadow column" stirring up shit. (No, really. He's point-blank accused Apple of encouraging this. No one outside of his cerebellum knows why.) Of course, just to cover his ass, he blames...the websites:

There are some other implications of these quick tests. Most desktop-style webpages are too piggy. Much of today’s web will likely cause needless strain to new pocket-sized devices. PocketNow.com’s own front page has over 250 HTTP requests, notifying over a dozen different web-beacon domains when you arrive. Even abnormal Flash use will only be just one more challenge in porting today’s web to smaller devices.

Flash is perfect, it's everyone else's fault. Apple is the enemy, Apple has always been the enemy. Without Apple, we would all have a perfect Flash future. It's your code's fault. It's your browser's fault. It is never Flash's fault.

(Actually, for a good chunk of June of 2009, it was all my fault. I was forcing him to close off comments. Seriously, read the last bits in some of his posts: here, and here.)

But that's Dowdell. He cannot admit that Flash has even a single fucking flaw. Security holes? Your fault for not updating more. Browser crashing? Your fault, you should use a Flash Blocker.

Here, another example of "Flash Uber Alles". If you read the actual post Dowdell is defending against, it's got a hyperbolic title, but, it's pretty well-written. The guy is pointing out actual problems he's seen with the full, official, release version of Flash 10.1 on Froyo. What's Dowdell's first thought?

For what it’s worth, biggest Android problem I’ve been running into online is when people had installed some type of hack into the system in hopes of getting Flash earlier than their manufacturer deemed prudent. If you’re having problems where you shouldn’t, then please get the device back to a known state first.

Then, in the comments, when someone points out that Dowdell didn't bother to read the fucking article, he blames the author for having too much text. No, really:

Sorry if I missed one critical phrase within those screenfuls of text, prefaced by all the Jobs stuff and op/ed. Wonder why he didn’t reply at the attempt to help. (Not sure why you’re blaming with the “blame the messenger” line.)

Look you fucking buttmonkey, if you're going to bag on someone's article, you should fucking read it. When you get busted, admit you were wrong. Don't start with the non-apology bullshit. Then of course, when he starts getting actual criticism, he kills off comments and...blames Apple:

I’m closing off comments on this one… was fine while it was on Techmeme, but was later linked by fansites of a company competing with Android…

Then, he follows that up with this thing. Go ahead, read it. Derive your own conclusions, but I'm reading it as "Sure, today's devices suck. They're just the precursor for the magic of the future. Buy one now, and use it so you know what you'll want in the future."

What the fuck? What happened to "10.1 will give us all uncompromised experiences"? Now we have to wait for some future device? We have to check not only Adobe's approved hardware site, (is it just me, or is it funny that there are only 4 devices shipping now that can use Flash and only one actually ships with it preinstalled, and they're all Androids), and then we're supposed to check the partner list for the Open Screen Project, and what? Hope that someone else releases a device with Flash? This is not ease of use, this is not anything good, this is a fucking mess to be fixed by TEH FUTURRRRRRE.

Even better is this bit:

Bottom line: Try lots. Not just one form factor either. The devices you’ll use daily eighteen months from now likely don’t even exist yet. Experiment. Figure out how applications should work in daily life, how these devices should bend to your will. Watch young kids, to see how they naturally want to use it. Even if you can’t purchase one soon, then you’re still free to think, to imagine, to figure out what would be really useful, in a world where any screen communicate with any other. Now’s the time. Go for it.

TRY LOTS????

Hey dipshit, some of us can't just go buy 4/6/10/elebenty phones and "try them all" until we find one that gives us a hint of what the future will bring! Jesus. Note that part. Don't try a lot of devices to find one that will work for you now. Try lots to find one that will give you a hint of what you might get in the future. That's like saying "Fuck a bunch of people when you're ten, so you'll know what you'll get when you're twenty."

This is why just saying this fucker's name makes my hackles rise. Because he's so full of shit. Because he's such a passive-agressive douche, who will not tolerate any criticism of his baby, and refuses to even face that criticism in person. (That's fact by the way. I had a really nice meeting with the Flash team in Feb. of this year. Engineers, one or two 'evangleists. No hyperbole, not too much aggression, just people talking about actual problems in a grown-up manner, and trying to see the other person's POV. Guess who wasn't there. Coward.) When you do criticize, he blames you, (and Apple), and then tries this mealymouthed backpedaling bullshit wherein he's now talking about how it's not about the devices you have now, it's about the fuuuuuuture. Yes, the bright shiny future.

This is why I cannot imagine why this fucker gets paid to talk to the public. He posts this bullshit about how Apple should talk, but if he gets a handful of anything but fawning comments, he closes them. He gets all fucking weepy and whiny about the "platform wars", but then he pumps that shit up as much as he possibly can. He talks about Flash as being the best thing ever to happen to the Web, but then tells you to use a Flash blocker if you have browser problems.

He lives in a delusional world where nothing Flash does is anything but perfect, everyone who disagrees with him is attacking him, and he is the only voice speaking against the forces of darkness. Letting him talk to anyone hurts Flash as much as any technical issue.

I have no problem with someone defending their work, but Dowdell is nothing but a delusional Adobe-paid troll.

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