The topic of this post begins with Adobe. And ends with more frustration.
Yes, I’m fed up of Adobe claiming to be the Web Developer’s go-to guy for software to enable advanced techniques in building the future Web. Actually, I’m fed up with them claiming that and then conspicuously ignoring a large part of the developer market who use Linux as their main operating system of choice.
This rant comes from spotting the release into the wild of Edge Reflow a tool to aid the development of responsive websites. Windows [tick]; Mac [tick]; Linux [huh?].
While I appreciate that the majority of the Design community run Macs and OS X on their workstations, developers invariably don’t. And in my experience they don’t run Windows either. So, as Edge Reflow has no export ability, and Edge Reflow doesn’t work on the developers' workstations, Adobe seems to think the way forward is for Designers to copy and paste CSS code (presumably into an email?) so that a Developer can re-create their hard-crafted design!?!
A Designers' job is to design, not mess about with code! Yes I appreciate some designers can code, but that isn’t a requirement for the job, just like design isn’t a requirement for a programmer’s role. Coders code, and Designers design! Expecting, nay REQUIRING, cross pollination of role between the design and code is going to leave the boss wondering why he employs two people to do the job when his designer, who has learned all the code to be able to convey his design to the developer, can do it all himself. Thereby leaving the Coder out of a job.
In my opinion, humble or not though it may be, Adobe is achieving three things:
- reducing market penetration potential, and therefore revenue, of Edge products,
- alienating their Designer market by requiring them to learn code, and,
- putting Coders out of jobs that they’re much more suited to do than their Designer counterpart.
Here ends the rant. My message to Adobe is simple: either embrace the development community or get out of web building altogether!