Verity Stob looks at feature bloat and a few other things in her piece on apps that have gotten worse over the years.

Confession: I use Paint Shop Pro too, although I have Photoshop installed as part of Adobe’s Web Premium CS3. In my case it is PSP version 5.0. PSP starts in a blink and has dead easy tools. Photoshop takes several seconds to start up and displays messages like “Initializing palettes” while it is getting going. There is nothing wrong with Photoshop, but equally if I just need to crop a screenshot quickly, I find myself using PSP and saving a few seconds.

Stob’s piece is light-hearted and unfair (I like C#) but a fun read.

I remember meeting a programmer back in the days of DOS and strict memory limits. He told me that every time he added a new feature, he had to find some other code he could remove in order to fit it in. A nightmare of course; but it prevented bloat.

It’s one of the reasons I like the Asus Eee PC. It is underpowered by many standards, but small, light, starts from cold in less than 30 seconds, and works fine for most everyday tasks.

Just another take on less is more.