Re: [tlug] The Great Mistake is thinking OOo is different [was: Why Vista Sucks]

["SL Baur" <steve@example.com>]

On 4/11/08, tlug@example.com <tlug@example.com> wrote:
> On Friday 11 April 2008 00:29:01 Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>  > WYSIWYG is not a solution, it is the problem, and
>
> <SNIP>
>
> > we're going to have to live with that crap.

> I believe that there is no single solution to all problems; one must pick the
>  best tool for each job.  Which tool is the best is not just a function of the
>  problem, however; it is also a function of the operator.  Slandering software
>  or methodologies with profanity just because it is not a tool of choice for
>  yourself only reflects close-mindedness, egotism, and disrespect toward
>  others.

I'm guessing that you're very young.  So, let's go back into history a
bit, shall
we?

My gentle introduction to the art of text processing came at the end of my
freshman year (spring 1981) and it was time to interview for summer jobs.
Being the typical college freshman, I waited until a few hours before my first
interview to start learning troff and typing my resume into the computer.  Let's
mark the date, approximately April 1981, 17 years ago and the time, it took me
about 2 hours to get the whole document typed, ready and printed.  And let's
be precise on this, I didn't bother typing this into VI because it was
too slow, I
used ed(1) for quick data entry.

Let's fast forward half a decade to 1987.  At this time, I was involved in my
first professional job and I had been recently transferred into an internal
company project oriented towards productivity.  My project was cloely
associated with another internal group who had been teaching people
(mainly secretaries with High School education and at best "Business"
degrees) document preparation with vi(1) and LaTeX(1) on BSD 4.2
Unix.  Guess what?  It was *working*.  (O.K. so sue me, I wasn't married and
I took a personal interest in unmarried secretaries then and got the real
inside story).

Now, let's fast forward a decade to 1997.  I'm taking extension courses in
college again to satisfy my late father's request that I learn something about
his profession.  In the 4th year undergraduate level class I was in, we were
required to turn in a group paper.  In our first session in the college computer
labs (Microsoft Something, defintely Microsoft Word), I watched my younger
team mates fiddle with on-screen formatting for about as long as it took me to
learn troff from manuals and type in a resume with ed(1) *before* we had any
content put into our paper.  That's progress?

I will not go into a recent experience with a Microsoft Windows XP version of
Microsoft Word because a) I don't want to use blue language; b) I'm still
under contract.  Suffice to say that Microsoft Word has all the flexibility of
a granite cliff when it comes to resizing documents.

You have missed article after article in the 1980s about WYSINWG.  The basic
arguments are still true.  The closest to come to that is Adobe and their PDF
format.  I'll let you speculate why PDF documents printed on dead trees look
different from how they appear when sprayed from an electron gun.

But hey, if you wish to ignore history, that's your business.  But DO NOT
malign those of us, and I mean Steve-san here, who know better.  WSYiWYG
is easily the most productivity pessimiser ever invented.  (A close 2nd and
3rd are the one and two button mice, but I do not expect you to understand
that).

-sb