On Oct 8, 2007, at 12:36 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:

> You're "just as involved" examples either only focus on one  
> platform or only one product. Photoshop is far more reliant on the  
> general type libraries, color management systems, pdf components  
> and other shared technology to enable people to use Photoshop more  
> elegantly with other Adobe creative products. In other words,  
> Photoshop just isn't Photoshop on its own anymore.

You're kind of missing the point. FCP and QuarkXPress are very  
powerful, capable products. They don't require near the installation  
size that PS does. Before Adobe took over MM products, they were  
significantly smaller in size. Now that they're over 250-350M each.  
They grew substantially overnight with the Adobe code base. You can  
argue all day and night that that extra code base is essential to the  
extra features... but the point is that more code equals more  
development time, maintenance time, and effort.

Those shared libraries do come with the added benefit of easier  
maintenance and the ability to share elegantly between products. And  
they come with the added cost of additional application size, slower  
load times, more ram requirements, and as with PS, the inability to  
ship some products faster when they are reliant to get this common  
base done before they can launch. It's a trade off.


> Dedicate resources for 1/4 to 1/3 of their market to stop  
> everything in their tracks to get a release out in faster time  
> rather than keep all your resources moving along as planned to  
> address their *entire* market at the same time? Todd, you're a  
> smart guy. Stop saying silly things.

That really didn't answer my question, or your answer isn't quite  
clear. Not sure if you mean they dedicate 1/4-1/3 to specific  
markets, languages, or what? What do you mean by 1/4-1/3 of market  
compared to their "entire" market here?


> On software products like Photoshop? Which kinds of products like  
> Photoshop have you worked on personally? One as complex, used by as  
> many people, one tat shares technology with other core creative
> products in a suite, and one that ships on multiple platforms in 10 
> + languages nearly simultaneously?

First, I've been involved in MM Flash, Fireworks, and DW before they  
came to Adobe. Not as much as you were involved in the products at  
Adobe, I'm sure. But I was involved on a level that gave me enough  
understanding to what it's like to build such a product/product  
suite. Additionally, I've worked on a number of large scale financial  
applications that used common libraries shared across multiple  
products. I've worked on products that range in size from customer  
bases of 50, to larger bases over 24M. Yes, I'm sure you can argue  
that PS probably has more than 24M users worldwide. But then you'd be  
ignoring the law of diminishing returns...


> More silliness. Photoshop has never been hurt by making a decision  
> to stick to its own ship schedule versus drop everything they are  
> doing because Jobs has new crack candy to sell for his customer base.

So, the release of a native OS X version of PS had absolutely no  
impact on the sales of PS? Now who's making silly statements?


> Sue Apple? What on earth are you talking about? You were making  
> snide comments about how long it took Adobe to release a native  
> version, a side thread at best here, and I called you to task for  
> it. Now you've got some axe to grind because you perceive that  
> Adobe taking an full year to release to a native version of your  
> pet platform somehow signals Adobe is lost in the woods. And you do  
> so from a point of
> ignorance on the myriad of issues Adobe has to deal with while  
> assuming that you do indeed know.

Looks like you got lost in the woods there at some point. I don't  
personally use PS that often, but our designers do (although  
Fireworks has been a great alternative). I do however have a number  
of professional photographer friends who were steamed about how long  
it took for a native version of PS to come out. There's no axe to  
grind from me–it really didn't effect my personal work at all. And w/ 
o PS, we'd do just fine with Fireworks.

OS X is my preferred platform, far from my pet platform.

I never claimed to know all the decisions and "issues" Adobe had to  
deal with specifically with PS. In fact, quite the opposite. I  
mentioned a few common issues and even left it open to a host of  
additional issues that nobody outside the core PS team, and more  
likely the management team, knows.

> The larger point I've been trying to make is that the folks in the  
> disability community are going after the wrong company in their  
> lawsuit. Target is not the ones they should be suing. They should  
> be going after MS and Apple to make them solve the problem for real  
> on the computer itself. Nothing more.

Well, we're not on the same page, but at least in the same book. I  
wouldn't point the finger at Apple and MS, but at the team developing  
the actual screen reader software themselves. Either way, I think we  
are in agreement that they shouldn't be going after Target, but the  
software makers.


Cheers!

Todd Zaki Warfel
President, Design Researcher
Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully.
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In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not.



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