[thechat] Adobe to buy Macromedia

[Paul Cowan]

On 18/04/2005 1:52 PM +0100 William Anderson wrote:
> The technology is great, it just needs great content builders and
> developers behind it.

I'd agree to a certain extent, with the caveat that it's next-to-impossible 
for PDF to provide a good web experience. Not because it's poorly used (it 
is), or because it can be bloated or poorly executed (it can; as you point 
out, so can HTML) but because the vast majority of people viewing PDF on a 
web environment are doing it using Acrobat Reader (and its various heirs 
and successors) -- and without a doubt, the various incarnations of Adobe 
PDF-reading software are among the clunkiest, most poorly-designed, bloated 
slow ugly unusable heap of crap pieces of software on the planet. I rank 
Acrobat etc. #3 on the all-time murderous-rage-inducing Windows programs 
ever, right behind QuickTime player (#2) and, of course, 
RealPlayer/RealJukebox/RealWhateverIt'sCalledThisWeek (way way WAAAY out in 
front at #1)

Paul