I managed to crash the PC with my first line of code.

That was pretty much as far as I got.

Also quite refreshing that sometimes there's also creative software not yet running on MacOS!

The reason I switched to Moho was because Reallusion stopped making Mac versions so I had to switch from Cartoon Animator to something else.

Haha, well version 2.0 which is a complete rewrite and will come in 2026 IS available for MacOS too, so guess I'm to blame still (source: https://www.cgchannel.com/2025/01/check … rgen-2-0/) .

I can't hear you.  La la la la la la la . . .

. And Linux being the only valid non-American alternative to the major OSses.

Linus did Linux in 1991/2 and by 1996 was living in the US and has been there since which is where the main FOSS development organisations and companies are based.

If there was any doubt in 2024 Linux excluded Russian developers from working on the kernel on the instruction of the US government.
Linux is a US controlled OS.

The US Spooks don't like it when other governments put things in Linux but to be fair it has been open season on Linux for the last couple of decades.
At least with MS and Apple you know who is screwing you.

You're lucky they don't have a Mac version otherwise curses would be upon you for making me buy another app.

Embergen, for example, which is a tool to have real time fire and smoke simulations in the viewport, did something nobody expected was possible. And for that they explicitely hired professionals NOT working in the field of VFX, because they would be rusted in their old habbits. They now are the biggest innovators in that field other companies are looking at. And used by most game studios and even the movie scene started using it.

You're lucky they don't have a Mac version otherwise curses would be upon you for making me buy another app.

On open source, yes, I agree with a lot of the downsides.  The upside is that if a particular open source app does what you need, you can use it as long as you have a machine it runs on.  No Internet activation schemes, no subscriptions, nothing.  If a computer crashes, you will still be able to install and use the software if you have a compatible machine.  You won't have to worry about activation servers or logins or even where you saved the license key.

The cross-platform thing that Affinity brought to the table

I can't even imagine the coding nightmare that must have been.

I don’t think it can have been as much of a nightmare as you imagine! The desktop apps have a shared base of core code with a platform-specific UI layer on top.

I seem to remember Objective-C and C++ being mentioned by posts from Serif staff members on the official forums, so there’s probably nothing too esoteric.

I've never worked with their former products, but I'm sure that if they would've continued building upon that they would never be this successful now and would have many of the same issues Adobe still has: legacy UI and legacy code.

Exactly! The ‘Plus’ applications were quite heavily dependent on built-in Windows features, and they were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and develop. The cross-platform thing that Affinity brought to the table was a particularly smart move: they actually launched the Mac version first, which obviously appealed to the many designers who use Macs rather than Windows machines.

I can see the importance of doing it slowly so that the viewer can follow what is happening, but I’m afraid I don’t see the relevance of doing it gently.

William wrote:

As if teaching someone who is learning rather than as if answering a question from an examiner who already knows the answer to show that one knows how to do it.

That’s slowly/thoroughly, isn’t it? Perhaps you and I don’t always use the word ‘gently’ in quite the same way.

That is possible.

William wrote:

I used that as an example.

An example of what?

An example of a topic about using a graphics design program that could be used in an episode of the television programme.

Interesting topic. I would without a doubt invest in a new product to be built up from the ground.

In my experience when starting fresh with knowledge of the past you get way cleaner, faster performing and more intuitive product.

The devs at Serif obviously had algorithms that they could recycle from their (Windows-only) ‘Plus’ applications, but the Affinity suite was built from scratch and designed from the beginning to be ‘platform agnostic’ with core code shared across the range. PagePlus could use native files from its stablemate PhotoPlus (an image editor) but apart from that and the homegrown Serif Metafile Format (*.smf) that all recent versions of those applications could use, there wasn’t any provision for direct data exchange.

I used that as an example.

An example of what?

That’s slowly/thoroughly, isn’t it? Perhaps you and I don’t always use the word ‘gently’ in quite the same way.