Comment by watsix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by watsix | Hacker News Reader

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In nirvana's defence, if you spent any time in video editor's forums when FCPX was launched, it would have been very easy to get the impression that editors, as a group, simply didn't like anything new. The amount of misinformation was staggering. Think of the worst, most misinformed emacs vs. vim debate you've ever seen: it was like that almost everywhere. That isn't to say that there weren't (and aren't) legitimiate complaints, but there was a massive amount of noise.

Your comparison also discounts the fact that the workflow in most modern video editors is extremely broken. Emacs and VIM users can make a good argument for a code editor being vastly customizable or controllable by keyboard only, but there are fewer defences for the way most video editors work: they behave as they do due to intertia, and because editors 20 and 30 years ago had to work a certain way due to the limitations of the hardware at the time. Many of the changes in FCPX are hugely welcome, but many editors -- including "pros" -- can't (or refuse to) see it.

Thanks for the feedback about my comparison - I'll agree that the "editor holy war" comparison I chose wasn't as apt as it could have been, and that Vim is not as to Emacs as FCP is to FCPX.

With that in mind, I still think there's a big difference between saying "video editors as a group tend to be too resistant to change," which I would have no problem agreeing with, and saying that "anyone who is creative will think FCPX is better than FCP," which is silly.

I'm not trying to assert that FCPX isn't better than FCP or that the old FCP workflow wasn't broken, because honestly, it probably was, and beyond missing a few key features (which I'm sure will slowly return), FCPX really is better. I'm just trying to say that being resistant to a major workflow change does not mean you're "not an editor" or "performing only rote tasks" like nirvana asserts.

>"anyone who is creative will think FCPX is better than FCP," which is silly.

Then you say:

>FCPX really is better.

So, obviously it isn't silly, because I accurately predicted what your opinion of the product would be.

>being resistant to a major workflow change does not mean you're "not an editor" or "performing only rote tasks" like nirvana asserts.

That's not what I was saying. I'm saying that this outcry is baseless and nonsensical.

If the workflow change for FCPX would negatively impact your job, then don't switch to it. FCP 7 didn't stop working when it was released.

Thus there is no reason for an "outcry". Which is why I think the outcry is really from people invested in, or employees of, Avid or Adobe.

Further, since the complainers improve the massive improvement in creative editing ability and instead focus on allegedly missing features (most of which are not actually missing) its clear to me that none of them are even addressing the main point of an editor-- to enable creative editing.

I'm sure there are people who just assemble shows based on a formula, for whom workflow is much more important than creativity. I was wrong, though, in assuming these people are the source of the outcry-- that was a mistake-- the outcry is coming from people invested in the Adobe and Avid alternatives. Those for whom workflow is a bigger issue have no reason to complain because they don't have to switch to FCP X.

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