Update to Hogarty's Apology

[digitaldog]

Perhaps Shantanu Narayen could cut his bonus by a million dollars or so and they could allocate that cash for the Lr team to hire another engineer or two if resources are so tight.

I think you're a bit confused about how this product is (was) developed and who is badly attempting to drive this ship into iceberg waters! It's not the engineers, it's the product manager. As such, your suggestion would make a lot more sense IF that million dollars was used to say, lure back John Nack to take over this poor product. Shantanu Narayen should severely clip Mr. Hogarty's wings and those above him who allowed such awful decisions about the products direction to be made. The engineers do what they are told to do.

[ButchM]

Butch obviously everyone can have an opinion...its that some come from ignorance while others come from experience.

So, you are still focused on applying qualifications on my opinion rather than share your insights on the topic itself?

If you are more 'experienced' to share insight on the matter, why not focus on how you could apply that experience to enlighten me, rather than never pass on an opportunity to paint me as ignorant?

Which would you rather listen to?

I'm willing to listen to your thoughts ... if your thoughts offer more than simply trying to disqualify my opinion out of hand.

[TomFrerichs]

I _do_ work for a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company. It's my day job. On one of my current projects a wrong bit of coding could impact 40 million customers in real time.

I am critical of Adobe's poor performance in figuring out where LR is going.  The import process, as changed, is a good example of being tone deaf when it comes to listening to users' desires and expectations. It appears that their architectural planning is haphazard.

But I will take strong issue with the suggestion that "throw a few more engineers at the problem" will solve anything.

First, the skill sets required are rare.  There ain't that many folks out there that can do it.

Second, LR is complex. In fact, it's a wonderful testament to the engineers that have worked on it all these years that much of that complexity is hidden from the users.

Third, a new engineer, even an incredibly skilled one, has to spend a lot of time learning how the program actually works...how the pieces and parts all go together.  It takes time, at least many months, for an engineer to understand how even a small part of it works.  As an analogy, any reasonably competent photographer understands exposure, but asking a competent Canon shooter to explain the ins-and-outs of Nikon's autofocus system the first time you hand him a D810 would be ridiculous.

Fourth, LR is now at version 6. Even with the best code management processes in place, there's going to be kruft, places where a small change in one place will impact a completely different part of the program. I'm sure there's lots of shared code for rendering an image that is used by every module. Making a change in that code to speed up rendering when moving the highlights slider in Develop may break the Print module's use of that same code. Frankly, I'm amazed that Adobe's folks got GPU processing working in LR as well as they did.  All of this means that regression testing, which really boils down to "I fixed it here, now let me find out if my change broke any of the myriad other uses of that routine," is an exacting process that only gets more involved in time. It also means that bringing an engineer up to speed takes a lot more time.

I would hope that Mr. Hogarty will indeed learn to listen better to the current user base...and, perhaps, allow more opportunity to allow that base to respond to proposed changes. I miss the public beta program; it would have prevented a lot of heartache in this particular case. 

I would also hope that ways to communicate what users want could be qualified more clearly. Too often, users are proposing solutions instead explaining the problem. For example, the problem was slow rendering, but many posts asked for "GPU processing." Maybe that is the right answer, but I'd rather let the engineers address the real problem instead of telling them how to fix it.

[ButchM]

I think you're a bit confused about how this product is (was) developed and who is badly attempting to drive this ship into iceberg waters! It's not the engineers, it's the product manager. As such, your suggestion would make a lot more sense IF that million dollars was used to say, lure back John Nack to take over this poor product. Shantanu Narayen should severely clip Mr. Hogarty's wings and those above him who allowed such awful decisions about the products direction to be made. The engineers do what they are told to do.

Andrew ... my reference to the CEO was a bit tongue-in-cheek (not to be mean and snarky) to point out that as a corporation, decision making has come under scrutiny over the past few years (which seems to have trickled down to the individual product level) and how those decision makers are rewarded. While I begrudge no one the opportunity earn as much as they are capable of ... and I have empathy for how difficult some aspects such large interests face in their endeavors, I don't have much sympathy for the premise of limited resources when the coffers are calculated using so many digits.

[ButchM]

But I will take strong issue with the suggestion that "throw a few more engineers at the problem" will solve anything.

First, the skill sets required are rare.  There ain't that many folks out there that can do it.

Second, LR is complex. In fact, it's a wonderful testament to the engineers that have worked on it all these years that much of that complexity is hidden from the users.

Third, a new engineer, even an incredibly skilled one, has to spend a lot of time learning how the program actually works...how the pieces and parts all go together.  It takes time, at least many months, for an engineer to understand how even a small part of it works.  As an analogy, any reasonably competent photographer understands exposure, but asking a competent Canon shooter to explain the ins-and-outs of Nikon's autofocus system the first time you hand him a D810 would be ridiculous.

While it's true that my suggestion of additional engineers was simplistic, it was not ridiculous in the respect that Adobe is not without the means if they chose to do so.

The matter is not how ridiculous the explanation of how a competing AF system works ... the matter I was discussing when I referenced additional engineers was in response to the question of who Adobe should 'listen' to. The reality was they didn't seem to be listening to anyone. I am of the opinion, that Adobe is more than capable of offering a more balanced approach where most every user receives at least some attention to their desires for the further development of Lightroom.

Had the Lr team not invested all those resources in a failed attempt to simplify and streamline the Import dialog, other, possibly more valuable, improvements could have been accomplished. Such choices by management can be much more costly than the additional payroll for another engineer. The difficulty of discovering, hiring and training said engineer notwithstanding.

[jjj]

I never made such a claim ... I merely pointed out I am allowed to have an opinion and I base that opinion on my life experience ... there is a difference.

Life experience in something unrelated.

[ButchM]

Life experience in something unrelated.

Are you sure? It's been my observation that human nature is rather consistent. While we would like to believe our own specific paths are rather unique and only understandable to the relatively few who have ventured forth in our particular calling ... as it turns out, the similarities of basic truths between varied vocations are indeed strikingly similar. Of course the jargon, scale and minute details may be quite different ... the basics are very similar across the board.

[jjj]

Are you sure? It's been my observation that human nature is rather consistent. While we would like to believe our own specific paths are rather unique and only understandable to the relatively few who have ventured forth in our particular calling ... as it turns out, the similarities of basic truths between varied vocations are indeed strikingly similar. Of course the jargon, scale and minute details may be quite different ... the basics are very similar across the board.

Needing to breath and eat, that's certainly consistent. Motivations, morals and such like are extremely varied with individuals though.
You can predict some aspects of the behaviour of large groups of people however, but that's a very different thing.

[MirekElsner]

I think you're a bit confused about how this product is (was) developed and who is badly attempting to drive this ship into iceberg waters! It's not the engineers, it's the product manager. As such, your suggestion would make a lot more sense IF that million dollars was used to say, lure back John Nack to take over this poor product. Shantanu Narayen should severely clip Mr. Hogarty's wings and those above him who allowed such awful decisions about the products direction to be made. The engineers do what they are told to do.

Excellent point, Andrew. Must be frustrating for the Engineering team as well.