Flash vs HTML5

What are the real issues, when looking at Flash and HTML5 (or any other browser-based scripting)? I don't know about you, but I find many articles on the subject questionable at best. Surely, we can do better.

My goal here is to ask questions and update this post as I get reliable answers. I'm not sure how this will evolve, but I hope it will turn up some reliable resources.

The key to evaluating information is to identifying the bias of the source. We all have our own bias, So I'll start first by stating mine. AS3 is one of my favorite languages, and it's my tool of choice when developing interactive visualizations. For those not familiar with my work, I specialize in science and data visualizations. Recently, I decided to go back to school and am currently working on my Masters in Computer Science. Remarkably, this has led me to appreciate what Flash does, more than ever. Having written simple search engines and html parsers for my course-work, I've noticed a bloat in web document markup and scripting.


Questions:

1. How long does it take to develop cross-browser web application with java-script versus Flash?

2. What are the stability issues?

3. What are the real learning curve issues?

4. If I develop in java-script, will my code still work when the next browser is released?

5. How long does it take for majority adoption of new browsers and plug-ins?

6. What does Flash do best, and what does HTML/java-script do best?

7. How do I generate a swf from command line?




If you'd like to share your expertise:
1. contact me here: http://www.underground-lab.com/contact.html
2. Use your full name
3. Enter your contact info, so I can ask you follow-up questions
4. State your bias
5. Who do you work for?
6. Reference your data, quotes, etc.