Aren't Adobe Reader programmers profesionals?
typi...@gmail.com
available for Windows(R). Though it worked so slow, I thought it is
only because displaying PDF requires much cpu work. Recently, I found
Foxit PDF Reader by chance. It opened the same PDF files much much
faster then Adobe Reader. How is this possible? Does this mean Adobe
Reader works inefficiently?
So, I've browsed the internet, and read many postings about Adobe
Reader. Many people said it was a bloatware, took too much memory &
disk space or too slow. If it is so, why is it? The programmmers for
Adobe Reader should be professionals for Adobe Reader is a world-wide
program and it has been developed for many years. Why did they have to
write Adobe Reader that way? What makes Adobe Reader so slow? Why does
it require almost 100MB disk space (when installed) whilest Foxit can
display PDF files with 1MB disk space?
By the way, I was using Adobe Reader 7, but removed it and installed
Foxit PDF reader. After using Foxit for several days, I've found that
it lacks some features I need so I'm now going to install Adobe Reader
7 again. I think I have to use both of these softwares.
Robert Heller
In a message on 6 Oct 2005 03:32:54 -0700, wrote :
t> Hello. Until recently, I thouhgt Adobe Reader was the only PDF reader
t> available for Windows(R). Though it worked so slow, I thought it is
t> only because displaying PDF requires much cpu work. Recently, I found
t> Foxit PDF Reader by chance. It opened the same PDF files much much
t> faster then Adobe Reader. How is this possible? Does this mean Adobe
t> Reader works inefficiently?
Not the core PDF renderering code.
t>
t> So, I've browsed the internet, and read many postings about Adobe
t> Reader. Many people said it was a bloatware, took too much memory &
t> disk space or too slow. If it is so, why is it? The programmmers for
t> Adobe Reader should be professionals for Adobe Reader is a world-wide
t> program and it has been developed for many years. Why did they have to
t> write Adobe Reader that way? What makes Adobe Reader so slow? Why does
t> it require almost 100MB disk space (when installed) whilest Foxit can
t> display PDF files with 1MB disk space?
The 'fancy' GUI. It is also coded in C++. GUI programs in C++ tend to
become bloated, depending on how you code it. It might also be a
side-effect of cross-platform programming techniques, depending on how
one handles the cross-platform programming issues. If Adobe Reader was
coded to expect a MacOS environment and is using a 'compatibility' layer
for MS-Windows an Linux, it is possible to add lots of random bloat to the
program under these environments.
t>
t> By the way, I was using Adobe Reader 7, but removed it and installed
t> Foxit PDF reader. After using Foxit for several days, I've found that
t> it lacks some features I need so I'm now going to install Adobe Reader
t> 7 again. I think I have to use both of these softwares.
Adobe Reader 7 IS bloated. I don't know exactly why (the source code
is not available :-(). Under Linux I use (and prefer)
GhostView/GhostScript (which is also available under MS-Windows) --
I've never likes Adobes GUI choices -- I find their UI confusing and
hard to use. xpdf is also available under Linux and (maybe)
MS-Windows. Adobe Reader 7 may have 'lots of features' (90% of which I
have no use for), which might be why it is slow and large.GUI programs
(esp. C++ coded ones) tend to grow large and slow very fast. Adding
many buttons and other GUI dodads does this.
It is not that Adobe's programmers are not professional, just that they
are not writing a small, fast program for a specific platform. Instead
they are writing a feature-rich cross-platform application. And are
probably trying to writing in a way to allow them to keep all platforms
covered with a current version as the application goes through
revisions. This is not always an easy task.
t>
t>
\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: hel...@cs.umass.edu
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || hel...@deepsoft.com
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153
Hans-Werner Hilse
On 6 Oct 2005 03:32:54 -0700
typi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello. Until recently, I thouhgt Adobe Reader was the only PDF reader
> available for Windows(R).
Did you ever try ghostscript?
> Though it worked so slow, I thought it is
> only because displaying PDF requires much cpu work.
Which may well be the case for e.g. certain Image encodings or very
high numbers of graphic paths.
> Recently, I found
> Foxit PDF Reader by chance. It opened the same PDF files much much
> faster then Adobe Reader. How is this possible? Does this mean Adobe
> Reader works inefficiently?
If efficiency is measured by (startup?) speed, well, yes.
> So, I've browsed the internet, and read many postings about Adobe
> Reader. Many people said it was a bloatware, took too much memory &
> disk space or too slow. If it is so, why is it? The programmmers for
> Adobe Reader should be professionals for Adobe Reader is a world-wide
> program and it has been developed for many years.
Maybe because there are numerous features implemented in AR which you
don't make use of? E.g. Forms, JavaScript, Accessibility and stuff
isn't what's needed by everyday's pdfs - but it is in the Reader
Software nonetheless.
> Why did they have to write Adobe Reader that way?
Probably they wanted to sell the above mentioned features as "working
with the plain Acrobat Reader, no need to install plugins" (they are
already installed).
> What makes Adobe Reader so slow? Why does
> it require almost 100MB disk space (when installed) whilest Foxit can
> display PDF files with 1MB disk space?
As I said, because it is principally able to do much more than just
displaying. Whether this is good design is questionable, yes. It's
certainly not the "Unix Way of Doing Things". But it is quite the "it
just works" attitude that sells Adobe's other products.
BTW, my AR is about 100MB only due to backup copies from earlier
versions. Otherwise, it'd be around 65MB, fast guess.
-hwh
Bent C Dalager
Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> typi...@gmail.com,
> In a message on 6 Oct 2005 03:32:54 -0700, wrote :
>
>t> Hello. Until recently, I thouhgt Adobe Reader was the only PDF reader
>t> available for Windows(R). Though it worked so slow, I thought it is
>t> only because displaying PDF requires much cpu work. Recently, I found
>t> Foxit PDF Reader by chance. It opened the same PDF files much much
>t> faster then Adobe Reader. How is this possible? Does this mean Adobe
>t> Reader works inefficiently?
>
>Not the core PDF renderering code.
I notice that Reader lets me select text blocks and seems to recognize
paragraphs etc. in pretty much the manner that I would expect it to. I
understand that this is knowledge that isn't in the actual PDF, in
which case the software must figure it out on its own.
Depending on how much of this there is in the software, and how
difficult this is to actually do, it might help explain some of the
extra bloat that a simpler PDF displayer may not have.
Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
John A Fotheringham
>paragraphs etc. in pretty much the manner that I would expect it to. I
>understand that this is knowledge that isn't in the actual PDF, in
>which case the software must figure it out on its own.
Same with hyperlinks. In Acrobat raw urls in the text become
clickable links even though they aren't explicitly marked up as such
in the PDF.
I'm fairly sure that didn't used to be the case, speaking as someone
who was about to add support for hyperlink markup to URLs in his PDF
generation software.
--
John A Fotheringham (Jaf) www.jafsoft.com
Brain the size of a planet, with the body to match
John A Fotheringham
>I notice that Reader lets me select text blocks and seems to recognize
>paragraphs etc. in pretty much the manner that I would expect it to. I
>understand that this is knowledge that isn't in the actual PDF, in
>which case the software must figure it out on its own.
Same with hyperlinks. In Acrobat raw urls in the text become
clickable links even though they aren't explicitly marked up as such
in the PDF.
I'm fairly sure that didn't used to be the case, speaking as someone
who was about to add support for hyperlink markup to URLs in his PDF
generation software.
--
John A Fotheringham (Jaf for short)
http://www.jafsoft.com/asctopdf/
(Intelligent text to PDF converter)