Things that Urk Me: Adobe

I've never cared for Adobe.  I remember how sad I felt when I learned they bought Macromedia.  Adobe's own products have never impressed me.  For some reason graphic artists can't get enough of them.  Just say "PhotoShop" in front of an Apple store and stand back or you might get sticky stuff all over you.  How a photo editing tool can sell for almost a thousand bucks is beyond me.  Gimp does almost everything it does, and Gimp is (and has always been) free.  Weird.

But what gets me most is how ignorant Adobe has always been with code writing and packaging.  They have never understood the word "optimize".  Well, I suppose they have optimized profit.  For sure.  But writing software that installs and handles DLL basing properly, no way.  Easy to package for mass deployment?  Please.  I may barf on the first person that disagrees.  Sure, they've recently gotten MSI religion.  After how many years?   How many of us have had to start the stupid, bloated installer, paused in the middle, and then gone dunking for french fries into the %TEMP% folder pit of hell to find the scattering of MSI files to evacuate safely onto a raft bound for safer surroundings.   Ask Adobe for help?  Ha.  You got a middle finger in your face.

Try packaging Acrobat or PhotoShop for SoftGrid, and if you forgot to check the box to re-base the DLL collections, you were in for a painful surprise.  Adobe could have done their homework and made their installer register DLL's properly and we'd all have an easier time.  Maybe CS4 and 10.0 products do this, but I don't know because I've gotten to the point where after handling a box of Adobe software, I have to wash my hands after dry heaving.  Sorry Adobe fans, I don't like Adobe.    I mean, seriously,  Acrobat Pro 9 is $450 ??!  WTF!?    PhotoShop CS4 starts at $700 ?!??!  WTF 2.0 ????