I just got back from Adobe’s Create The Web event in San Francisco. I am excited about Adobe’s direction and what they are up to. If you haven’t already seen it, you should check it out. They have put the keynote video up and it gives a good overview of what was talked about all day. In short, I really like that Adobe is taking a shot with open source software. This isn’t the easiest route to deliver a product but I think it helps to engage the community. More importantly I think it is a great way to get feedback from actual users who care about the product.

I left the event feeling inspired that Adobe is heading in the right direction with the new Adobe Edge product line. I hope that tools like Reflow have the ability to make a big difference in moving to responsive designs. I really like the inline editing and live reloading features of Brackets. Inspect (previously Shadow) is also a good focused product.

This was another aspect that I appreciate about the Edge line. Rather than attempting to make one big super tool, Adobe is making smaller focused tools for specific tasks. This will allow folks to use the tooling where they are helpful, but not require a complete rethinking of how you are comfortable working today.

Lastly, there is something exciting about web tools that are being built with web standards. There is something about a set of tools that is built by folks who are also writing web standards, that output files as web standards that feels right.

All in all I was really impressed by Adobe yesterday. I think they are finally hitting their stride in their move to support web and open standards.