I recently followed an link is my RSS reader so I could comment on a thread over at 37 signals regarding Ridiculous uses for Photoshop.

In the post Ashley talks about using Photoshop, a rather large program, to do a tiny, menial task like picking a hex color from a photo. She seems to lament the fact that Photoshop is overkill for this task, and asks if there are any simple applications out there that do the job better.

At 37 Signals, it seems the mentality is that everything should be stripped down to a basic task and made into an application. The thought being that a single application that does one thing extremely well is better than a massive program that does tons of things you’ll never need.

I understand this on the surface, especially when most people may never use the advanced features of a larger program. But here is my issue: I would rather have one good, larger application (ie. Photoshop) that does everything I need within a specific taxonomy (ie. Raster manipulation) than a ton of tiny programs that each do one thing very well.

37 Signals’ viewpoint seems to assert that a large program cannot do all things well, and that somehow “small” translates into “more focused and refined”. But could it be that a program can actually have a large set of tasks and functions, and do them all well? I think so.

The advent of Web 2.0, as cool as it is, has really begun to irritate me with all these “tiny little apps” that all “do one thing very well”. Each of these apps comes with its own URL, it’s own login, it’s own password, own interface, own learning curve, etc. In this case, is it easier or harder to get things done?

I’m not at all against small apps. I’m not against entrepreneurialship, or options and choices either. In fact, I believe there are times when less really is more. But in many cases, could it be that the less we’re looking for is not less features and less size, but rather less apps and clutter to deal with?