Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

patdryburgh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 130 posts

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#121

Post by rdl »

pasbesoin wrote: post #95
droithomme wrote: post #15

Many years ago the number one page layout program was Quark Xpress. The company decided to save money by firing all their employees who developed the program and were familiar with the code base and save money by outsourcing all development to a code team overseas who was not familiar with page layout software or the Mac platform Quark ran on. This outsourcing team would appear on development boards asking extremely…

No. These days, in these types of corporations, when you are asked to "mentor" someone, start looking for your next job. Sorry, but that's the way it works. Especially if you are mentoring someone overseas. It's not (just) a matter of spite. Particularly if you're a bit older, and you're staying in or locked into that sort of corporate environment: You are much more employable when you are already employed. (You need…

Mentoring in a startup (or growing company) is totally different, though -- even if it is training someone to do your job, it's because they need more people to do your job, or because you could move up once a replacement is trained.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#123

Post by idspispopd »

droithomme wrote: post #15

Many years ago the number one page layout program was Quark Xpress. The company decided to save money by firing all their employees who developed the program and were familiar with the code base and save money by outsourcing all development to a code team overseas who was not familiar with page layout software or the Mac platform Quark ran on. This outsourcing team would appear on development boards asking extremely…

Quark very nearly purchased Adobe. Adobe rebuffed the offer and instead focused on developing InDesign, which would be the first mac osx native DTP title, effectively dealing a massive blow to the sedentary Quark. I don't believe Adobe are in a position where they are safe from competition however.

As for Adobe's shitty software, it doesn't help that Adobe have acquired most of their titles via acquisitions, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...

Some of the software (such as flash) are handed down many times, ensuring the loss of those who knew the code best, which were often the company owners who cashed out after the initial sale.

Adobe's software titles and portfolio are so massive now that it's no surprise that they're laden with bugs, overly focused on new features and notorious for their CPU requirements, memory footprint and ancient code.

The best Adobe software titles have always been their home grown, more recent titles, such as Lightbox and InDesign. It's clear they know the code here and how to revise it.

Adobe's risk is that, like Quark, their main business is in relatively few titles. They could be competed effectively by anyone who is willing to take on the big 3 design requirements. (Raster Editing/Vector Editing/DTP for PDF/postscript output.)

The reason gimp fails to make a sizeable dent in photoshop is because it has next to no support for CMYK images(or spots), which are essential to print.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#124

Post by goblin89 »

droithomme wrote: post #15

Many years ago the number one page layout program was Quark Xpress. The company decided to save money by firing all their employees who developed the program and were familiar with the code base and save money by outsourcing all development to a code team overseas who was not familiar with page layout software or the Mac platform Quark ran on. This outsourcing team would appear on development boards asking extremely…

Or maybe a better way is “optimizing for outsourcing”—diligent documentation, strict coding guidelines, etc. That would help to improve communication, get new people up-to-speed quickly, keep things consistent.

I'm not sure why there's a need for apprenticeship today, when there are so many ways to record and exchange information. There just needs to be a culture giving value to documents and documenting practices. This doesn't reduce the need to hire good people, but is likely to increase their work efficiency, regardless of how much development is outsourced.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#125

Post by smacktoward »

tom9729 wrote: post #116
fotbr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes so long because the GIMP developers have a long-standing tradition of telling people with requests to go jump off a cliff if the feature being requested isn't directly useful to the developers. They have a fairly typical failing in assuming that because the source is available, anyone asking for features has the ability and the time to implement those features themselves, when often that is not the case.

If they're not being paid to work on it, why would you expect them to prioritize things they're not interested in working on or not going to use?

Because they want people to use their software?

Of course, if you don't care whether or not anyone uses your software, telling people with questions and requests to jump off a cliff is entirely reasonable.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#126

Post by lusr »

fotbr wrote: post #111
lusr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a list. I wonder why it takes so long for these features to be supported. Perhaps what's necessary is a new paradigm of development: a core application with composable modules developed by a community on the basis of need. Evolution of standards will be tricky to manage but it seems likely to be inevitable.

It takes so long because the GIMP developers have a long-standing tradition of telling people with requests to go jump off a cliff if the feature being requested isn't directly useful to the developers. They have a fairly typical failing in assuming that because the source is available, anyone asking for features has the ability and the time to implement those features themselves, when often that is not the case.

So I'm thinking one way to reduce the barrier for entry into participation is to have the bulk of the application's features in a higher level language (rather than C), with the core in a high performance language. Unfortunately this is not something I'd have the time to pursue.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#127

Post by ytpete »

michaelpinto wrote: post #18

In my long gone youth one of the most exciting things in the world was an upgrade to Photoshop -- each release brought out a new killer feature that you couldn't even get from a Quantel Paintbox which would have cost you more than you could have imagined. Now in my old age I feel like I'm being held hostage to ever damn upgrade with few killer features that blow me out of the water. In fact just seeing a headline abo…

>I'm frankly shocked that Apple hasn't done this yet

My guess is that Apple has basically decided the pro market for anything is not worth their while. Apple makes virtually all their money from mass consumer products like the iPod and iPhone. The spectacular growth in those segments has been paired with a steady decline in Apple's interest in servers, desktops, pro video, pro photography, etc. Good for shareholders no doubt, but I think it's sort of a shame.

Re: Buying Adobe Photoshop CS6

#128

Post by fotbr »

tom9729 wrote: post #116
fotbr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes so long because the GIMP developers have a long-standing tradition of telling people with requests to go jump off a cliff if the feature being requested isn't directly useful to the developers. They have a fairly typical failing in assuming that because the source is available, anyone asking for features has the ability and the time to implement those features themselves, when often that is not the case.

If they're not being paid to work on it, why would you expect them to prioritize things they're not interested in working on or not going to use?

I don't expect them to. I'm just answering the question as to why features take so long to get implemented.
Post reply on HN