Filed under: Universal Binary
Adobe engineer explains delay in Adobe universal binaries
Adobe has taken some heat for delaying universal binary versions of
Photoshop and other Creative Suite software until the next scheduled release of those apps. If you're interested in a
view of this controversy from the trenches, take a look at this post by Photoshop engineer Scott Byer.
Byer starts out:"'But, c'mon', I hear people saying, 'Steve said it was just a recompile!' Or,
'Back during the PowerPC transition, you guys released a patch?'
Well, this time is different. And I really
wish it weren't. But let me tell you how..."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
MegaMe said 8:49PM on 3-23-2006
How long has Adobe known about the Intel transition?
How old is the base of their code?
Is their goal to push people away from the mac to the pc?
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John Muir said 9:06PM on 3-23-2006
Yup, honesty like this is a refreshing thing to come across. Adobe have nothing to lose by being open about their plans for CS2 and CS3, but try telling that to the marketing suits in most corporations...
What was said about Xcode vs. Metrowerks and Visual Studio was interesting. I wonder how much easier developing would be if they, hypothetically, dumped the Windows port entirely? Not that this would please too many people!
Excuse me for sticking with CS1 until the Universal CS3 is out and is confirmed to kill on Woodcrest!
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Derek said 9:43PM on 3-23-2006
All things considered, Apple kept telling every developer to make sure their projects worked in XCode. That was about 3 years ago. He made some pretty bad excuses, such as that Adobe CS2 is too large to bring to XCode in just a year. Obviously, it must suck for Apple to have such inadequate tools as XCode to use as their environment for just about every app they make. I'm glad that Apple isn't holding back their innovation for one company.
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Jon Hendry said 10:03PM on 3-23-2006
Scott also knows his way around fat (universal) binaries and such - in the 90s he was active on the NeXT newsgroups, such as comp.sys.next.programmer, including the period when NeXT released the Intel version of their OS.
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Scott Falkner said 10:08PM on 3-23-2006
Isn't this the same Adobe that shipped a buggy Illustrator 11 that shouldn't even have been called a beta? The same Adobe that never release an update to address the numerous blatant bugs and errors in the program? The same Adobe that then release a slightly less buggy, but still unready, InDesign 3? The same Adobe that release three updates to InDesign, but numbered them all 3.01?
Me, I'm not so shocked that they're not releasing a UB.
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Rafe said 11:23PM on 3-23-2006
Any software that shows the black wrist watch (from the OS 9 days), and not the rainbow wheel, during processor intensive moments needs to be rewritten to become universal.
Adobe products CONSTANTLY show the black and white wrist watch, in almost any task. Tsk. Tsk.
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Macly said 11:32PM on 3-23-2006
On one hand I know that their apps, especially Photoshop, have really old code bases, and I'm sure they have all sorts of custom stuff written for Metrowerks, so I'm sure it is a non trivial task to move over to XCode.
On the other hand, I'm not surprised they aren't going to stop working on Cs3 to patch Cs2. I doubt that their upgrade rates to Cs2 were that great, because there wasn't any real compelling reasons to upgrade. By waiting until Cs3, they are guaranteeing huge upgrade rates because everyone will be on x86 Macs by then.
I believe that the engineering feat is difficult, but I'm betting this decision wasn't made by engineers. Uncool for us, but we created a monopoly (myself included), so we deserve it.
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Virtuous said 11:52PM on 3-23-2006
Adobe and Quark products are severely overpriced. Adobe has its customers by the balls.
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Wheels said 1:41AM on 3-24-2006
The Adobe code is too large for Xcode? Maybe they should rewrite it specifically for Xcode then. Yes, it's a Herculean task, but since they're already whining about what a big hassle it's going to be to convert their current code, they can just whine that much more; it'd probably result in leaner code and a better overall product. GASP!
Does Adobe expect us to believe that the PhotoShop code dwarfs the code for programs like Mathematica and Final Cut Pro? Will somebody believe me when I say that the relationship between Apple and Adobe is on the skids?
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timothy said 2:19AM on 3-24-2006
@ Rafe
Um, I use Adobe everyday (I'm a graphic designer). Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator are all open on my computer at once, all day. I almost always get the spinning beachball if it's hanging, rarely seeing the wristwatch.
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l0ne said 2:49AM on 3-24-2006
To everyone bitching about the transition: consider that Xcode is still in its infancy as a development environment, being pretty new and all. Although it might seem easy to simply drop Photoshop's few millions lines of code in a Xcode project and hit build, you must remember:
- that the compiler is different, which might introduce problems in building and/or bugs that must be found and worked around.
- that the environment may not offer all the tools that Visual Studio and Metrowerks support, which means the Adobe guys must find a workaround
- that any automated build & test system that was originally though to be used with the other environments must be recreated from scratch
- that you must do all of this in a way that allows you to rebuild both the Win32 and OS X versions of Windows from the same code base (not easy!)
- that any change you do to the code in order to support all of this might need to be replicated on thousands of source files and (potentially!) hundreds of thousands of lines of code, which must be then tested in order to check whether the check broke anything
That's NOT for the faint of heart!
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kumaw said 11:26AM on 3-24-2006
MegaMe,
Adobe's known about the transition for less than a year like the rest of us. AND Apple wasn't even supposed to ship any Intel-Macs until June 2006. So now it's Adobe's fault that Apple came out with Intel-Macs early and Adobe trusted Apple by making plans based on June 2006 Intel-Macs.
Very good reasoning.
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kumaw said 11:41AM on 3-24-2006
Derek said:
"All things considered, Apple kept telling every developer to make sure their projects worked in XCode. That was about 3 years ago."
Derek, this is quite possibly the stupidest argument anyone can make. That's like saying "Adobe's been telling everyone to switch from Freehand to Illustrator for like 3 years so it's your fault that you didn't" or "Microsoft's been telling everyone to switch from C++ Builder to Visual Studio for years so it's your fault that you didn't."
Of course competitors are going to tell everyone to use their product over another product. That doesn't mean that you have to or that it makes good business sense to. CodeWarrior is (or was) an excellent product that is in many ways superior to Xcode. Unless Apple's Xcode provided some great benefits over CodeWarrior then there was no great and compelling reason for people to switch. Now people are being forced to switch, not because Xcode is some great product, but because they have no choice.
Of course by your reasoning it's our fault that we chose a superior product over Xcode for so many years.
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hobojoe said 4:02PM on 3-24-2006
I'm with Wheels on this.
This has very little to do with technical issues, and more with egos. Adobe is a multi-billion dollar company, and has had harsh words for Apple in the past. You can bet they're still sore that Final Cut rendered their Premiere worthless. Factor in the rumours (now somewhat quiet) that Apple was coming out with their Photoshop-killer, and what you get is a stubborn Adobe refusing to play by Apple's rules. They don't want to be Apple's bitch.
Come on. Do you really believe that Adobe was taken by surprise by the Intel transition? Apple will definitely feel the heat on this. Adobe will definitely make a bundle when their Universal Binary version comes out.
Oh, and it's March 24, and I haven't heard a peep about Apple's Pro Apps.
- hobojoe
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DMC said 1:19AM on 3-30-2006
So yeah, Apple just realeased universal pro apps today. That was kinda freaky after reading the last post... now say something about Adobe and maybe we'll all get lucky...
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