Code Bloat II

[MasterRacker]

Has anyone else had a chance to wonder what will come out of the Symantec/Veritas merger?

In my mind, I can think of very few companies that would come to mind as quickly as those two for being associated with overbuilt, overpowering, overly complicated, overbaked software whose true purpose is to sieze every single resource on any computer within line of sight.

I quit using Norton Utiliies back in the early 90's when they turned my machine into a boat anchor and their products have only gotten worse over the years. Their stuff is so bad these days, they've had to develop special tools to clean up after uninstallation that are good enough that there are only a few hundred registry settings left to try and dig out manually.

I hate to even start in on BackupExec, whose default backup scheme is Grandfather-Father-Son-Second Cousin-Half-uncle twice-removed, on a double rotated partial differential-incremental single inverted swap schedule.

If both sets of developers merge, I hate to consider what we'll get.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[SQLSister]

I vote for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as being awful, bloated programs which couldn;t manage manmeory if their lives depended on it at least the Windows versions. Those babies don;t even always release the memory they gobble up when you close them down. For that matter ADobe Reader 6.0 is horrible to load just to view a pdf file. What were they thinking? Who wants to wait a few minutes to view a static file?

Questions about posting. See faq183-874

 

[kHz]

Adobe Reader loads about 500 plugins and it isn't quick about it! Like you, I just want to view the file... why so many plugins?

It would be interesting to see how many features of a product are actually used. For example, Microbloat Word, if people only use 5% of the features, why build a monstrosity?

 

[MasterRacker]

See my first bloat rant (thread656-915184) to speed up the the reader.

PDF's in general should not be used as web content, only as clearly marked downloads. See:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/pdf.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html

I did say few products. Adobe in general is high on my list also. Even PhotoShop Elements loads 574 filters when it starts up.

PC Magazine's discussion forums recently had a huge discussion on what a mess Word is so we don't need to go there. At least you don't have to have a beer, wash the car, Lear Mandarin Chinese, etc. while it's loading.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[SQLSister]

The thing that really gripes me about Illustrator in particular is how many times I've had to reboot because it wouldn't give back my memory even after I properly closed it.

I never thought about learning Mandarin Chinese while Reader opens. Good idea. Xiexie.

Questions about posting. See faq183-874

 

[kmfna]

I certainly agree that Symantic is WAAAAYYY too bloated...and what do you really glean from all of this junk they throw on your computer? Not much. I just installed Norton 2k5 on my computer and it had a bad install...so now every time I restart I get this crappy message "Norton 2005 does not support the repair feature, please uninstall and reinstall Norton" The first time I got this problem I was like, WHAT THE CRAP? All these files all of this wasted process and NO repair feature? Gotta love this Awesome piece of software....Either way, as annoying as it is, I refuse to reinstall it, as I do not have another 1 1/2 hours to waste on it...besides it is now just the principal....

See you all later,
Kevin

- "The truth hurts, maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with no seat, but it hurts.

 

[kHz]

I can't install the Acrobat Reader fix to speed it up, because that would be on my workstation at work, which I would not be allowed to do.

 

[MasterRacker]

kHz, I feel for you. Try and convince you sysadmin to let it on. It's safe and definitely helps productivity.

I do remember reading somewhere that Adobe got embarrased by that tweak and is working on something similar for the next version of the reader. Let's hope they carry that technique into their other products.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[Dimandja]

>Adobe Reader loads about 500 plugins and it isn't quick about it! Like you, I just want to view the file...

I routinely skip any web page that claims to be PDF. Must be nuts to park a PDF on Internet.

Try forum1391

 

[kHz]

Having the fix installed... Ever work for the government?

 

[MasterRacker]

Didn't realize you're in government. The only response possible is "sorry - never mind...."


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[jwenting]

Another candidate: XMLSpy.
Almost as bloated as your average Symantec app when installed and even worse when uninstalled (in fact when I tried it it CREATED registry entries during uninstallation which linked almost every filetype on my machine to itself even while it was uninstalling and then left all those in place).