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Re: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"

• To: "Dan Mabbutt" <Seigfried@m...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
• From: Alaric Snell <alaric@a...>
• Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:43:17 +0100
• In-reply-to: <CKEFIGMAOHPPOGFNFCGBKEDPEOAA.Seigfried@m...>
• References: <CKEFIGMAOHPPOGFNFCGBKEDPEOAA.Seigfried@m...>

On Friday 10 May 2002 17:32, Dan Mabbutt wrote:

> >>I had hoped that people would hit on some of these points.
> >>Are there any technologies that DID hit a clear 80/20 point
> >>that lost out in the marketplace to more complex competitors (
> >>that weren't already entrenched)?
>
> Why didn't anybody mention Adobe's Photoshop and Premier? They're both
> famous for their complexity and impenetrable interface, and they both
> dominate their respective niches. Photoshop, in particular, defeated some
> very significant opposition. Only Paintshop Pro seems to be still hanging
> in there ... and it sells to a completely different price/performance need.

Oooh, let me think - in a lot of specialist markets the most complex tool 
wins since all the users are very results-focussed; they prefer to spend 
effort learning a complex interface to something powerful rather than a 
simple interface to something less powerful.

Things used by programmers come to mind... Perl is very complex compared to 
Python, and people who use it tend to revel in the complexity and try to come 
up with more and more obscure tricks for getting things done.

>
> Dan Mabbutt
>

ABS

-- 
                               Alaric B. Snell
 http://www.alaric-snell.com/  http://RFC.net/  http://www.warhead.org.uk/
   Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software  

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