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The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

simonwillison.net

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Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#11

Post by cpursley »

sudo_cowsay wrote: post #5
cpursley wrote: post #3

I still don’t understand why with all their cash these companies dont redo their apps in Rust or native. They are all so heavy and dog slow. There are already some very fast cross platform (wasm too!) libraries that can do what poppler does as well as parse and produce various office file formats. Because 2gb is crazy town, these things could be around 100mb, just throw some tokens at the problem.

Not that easy. Also, they have "priorities." Although their priorities are different than the users'.

Just throw some tokens at the problem. I’ve vibed up a Rust Crux hybrid app that runs well on macOS, iPad and wasm and does some pretty complex xml manipulation and other document work. Absolutely smokes electron and you get native UI.

Ref: https://redbadger.github.io/crux/

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#12

Post by JLO64 »

pseudosavant wrote: post #2

Is that what it is using to render and manipulate MS Office documents? That'd explain the poor rendering of some of my files. Bundling all of LibreOffice seems like a pretty huge dependency.

For a docker image of mine I was bundling the full version of LibreOffice as well but I managed to get some space savings by bundling just the no-gui version.

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#13

Post by verdverm »

nomel wrote: post #7
pseudosavant wrote: post #2

Is that what it is using to render and manipulate MS Office documents? That'd explain the poor rendering of some of my files. Bundling all of LibreOffice seems like a pretty huge dependency.

> Bundling all of LibreOffice seems like a pretty huge dependency What's the alternative library you see?

Why not computer use or using the tools the user prefers instead? The primary office suites have APIs/CLIs now

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#14

Post by simongg »

nomel wrote: post #7
pseudosavant wrote: post #2

Is that what it is using to render and manipulate MS Office documents? That'd explain the poor rendering of some of my files. Bundling all of LibreOffice seems like a pretty huge dependency.

> Bundling all of LibreOffice seems like a pretty huge dependency What's the alternative library you see?

Apache POI

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#16

Post by andai »

nomel wrote: post #9
cpursley wrote: post #3

I still don’t understand why with all their cash these companies dont redo their apps in Rust or native. They are all so heavy and dog slow. There are already some very fast cross platform (wasm too!) libraries that can do what poppler does as well as parse and produce various office file formats. Because 2gb is crazy town, these things could be around 100mb, just throw some tokens at the problem.

What % of time, for a an average session, do you think is app overhead vs waiting for tokens? And there's your answer for why it's not a priority.

Jon Blow's response to this take was, "yes, which is why you have to work even harder to hide latency", instead of adding more on top.

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#17

Post by verdverm »

cpursley wrote: post #11
sudo_cowsay wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that easy. Also, they have "priorities." Although their priorities are different than the users'.

Just throw some tokens at the problem. I’ve vibed up a Rust Crux hybrid app that runs well on macOS, iPad and wasm and does some pretty complex xml manipulation and other document work. Absolutely smokes electron and you get native UI. Ref: https://redbadger.github.io/crux/

one does not just "throw tokens" at a problem, Ai is not that capable, and we are talking about MS Office file format, likely a NP hard problem

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#19

Post by lgl »

Does that really mean that it's bundling those apps from the start or did it just download and install them at some point to do some local work on some prompt or job you ask it to?

I don't see it making much sense to bundle it. I'm sure a LOT of LLM prompts are related with docs, excels, powerpoints etc, etc but don't really see it worth it for it to be bundled on the codex app from the get go, because otherwise, why not also install dozens of other apps?

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