REACTION!!! Re-write After Effects from scratch??? by PVC

[Brian Timmons]

by Chris Zwar of Pro Video Coalition

https://www.provideocoalition.com/re...-from-scratch/

Poster's note: I've only used After Effects sparingly (or perhaps in desperation when I couldn't find a real AE operator)
but this is a pretty interesting situation given AE is over 25 years old and perhaps reaching a performance crossroads with the codebase.

It's reminiscent of the FCP Studio to FCP X transition and the subsequent fall out.

 

[Phil Holland]

This has been a topic for several years not just with AE, but also Premiere Pro and Photoshop as well. Years back there was real conversation and back and forth with Adobe over this concept, but as of yet unknown if there's real movement. I'd say the real conversation started around 2015 or so. There's much that can and should be done, but they are also in a tricky situation where they have a very large userbase and a full redesign is likely difficult.

To that point I think they should have a stagnated release and support of old versions easing into new. Like 3 years of that potentially. It's a headache, but likely the best way to service every sort of user.

 

[Brian Timmons]

This has been a topic for several years not just with AE, but also Premiere Pro and Photoshop as well. Years back there was real conversation and back and forth with Adobe over this concept, but as of yet unknown if there's real movement. I'd say the real conversation started around 2015 or so. There's much that can and should be done, but they are also in a tricky situation where they have a very large userbase and a full redesign is likely difficult.

To that point I think they should have a stagnated release and support of old versions easing into new. Like 3 years of that potentially. It's a headache, but likely the best way to service every sort of user.

Indeed I’m sure it can be a bit of a headache.
Next to a Microsoft, if there was ever a software developer with the resources to handle such a transition
it would be Adobe.

Apple managed to transition Mac OS from a rewrite (or transformation to NeXT OS) to create OS X, 2 CPU architecture changes, and various internal changes in APIs.
While I wouldn’t say it was painless for users and developers things did stay together in the end.

The stagnated release you mention makes sense.
It was what Apple failed to do with FCP Studio to FCP X which is ironic given their success with OS transitions.

Adobe has a loyal if not “captive” user base.
Even if the transition roadmap was 5-10 years their
customers will likely stick around.

I do wonder if the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” crowd has the majority say in Adobe.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Marc Wielage]

This has been a topic for several years not just with AE, but also Premiere Pro and Photoshop as well. Years back there was real conversation and back and forth with Adobe over this concept, but as of yet unknown if there's real movement. I'd say the real conversation started around 2015 or so. There's much that can and should be done, but they are also in a tricky situation where they have a very large userbase and a full redesign is likely difficult. To that point I think they should have a stagnated release and support of old versions easing into new. Like 3 years of that potentially. It's a headache, but likely the best way to service every sort of user.

I'm reminded of when Adobe bought Pagemaker (anybody remember that?) and users had to migrate to inDesign. Adobe said they could have just modified Pagemaker to keep it going, but said what was there was so kludgy and all over the place, they opted to completely rewrite it from scratch and try to have common user interface elements with Illustrator and other products. But you were screwed if you had an old Pagemaker document you needed to open a few years later.

Same kind of problem with Final Cut Pro 7 and FCPX.