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Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

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Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#141

I’ll never forget the grade 9 science class Powerpoint presentation I did in 1998. I had each letter of every headline flying in one by one with a laser sound (pew pew pew). That was my first moment of magic with Powerpoint.

I got an attaboy when I used sounds and flying text in my first summer office job. It was cool.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#142

Apart from being useful for presentations, Powerpoint is still my go-to for mockups - screw Figma, I can achieve 80% of the result in 20% of the time.

The geometry available and the frankly very subtly good alignment-snapping that it has makes it very useful. Posters, ERDs, I'm sure there are other applications too.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#143

Apart from being useful for presentations, Powerpoint is still my go-to for mockups - screw Figma, I can achieve 80% of the result in 20% of the time.

The geometry available and the frankly very subtly good alignment-snapping that it has makes it very useful. Posters, ERDs, I'm sure there are other applications too.

I remember being a bit taken aback when a colleague of mine at a large company where design is a pretty big deal showed me some really good wireframes and told me that he made them in PowerPoint. It’s actually quite a good tool for wireframing

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#144
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my work (Fortune 100 company), it is Excel and Outlook. I’m not certain why the powers that be settled on outlook.

I worked at a company that used IBM's Lotus for six months. Outlook was no longer the worst for me.

As did I. Lotus Notes is something that cannot be unseen.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#145

Apart from being useful for presentations, Powerpoint is still my go-to for mockups - screw Figma, I can achieve 80% of the result in 20% of the time.

the ability to drag and drop rearrange, and the ability to have a header and then just body text is really useful for lots of mockups. I think at this point, I've used powerpoint (or equivalent) in place of at least:

* word processing software * CAD software * pretty much everything adobe * Xcode * photo software

and there are probably other's

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#146
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>thought they were unfairly aimed at the software Yeah. I’ll bet that all of the Microsoft office engineers feel this way, and it explains a lot about why the suite is such a bug ridden, shitty performing fucking mess. The only thing keeping the office suite alive at this point is the enormity of the task to disrupt it.

I surmise that Google workspace has managed to supplant it in a very real ways. For the last 3 places I’ve worked everything is done in Google Workspace. The only thing that Microsoft has a hold over is with Excel, that’s all anyone used from MS

Yep, I've long conjectured that Excel is what sells MS office. Every other product in the Office suite, including PowerPoint, has very viable alternatives.

Excel has a 100% a strong-hold in most finance departments. I've worked with many finance professionals who's very first instinct for any type of work is to open Excel. When interacting with any data outside of Excel, they'll demand a way to get it into Excel.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#147
PowerPoint is an impressively mixed bag. Something of an extreme example, in my mind, of the "amorality" of tools and, yet, the strongly "good" / "bad" that can come of them.

PowerPoint, for all its putative and/or quite real flaws and bad ... points ... is, in some sense, one of the most powerful tools in the modern world. How many decisions have hinged on PowerPoint presentations? How many decisions might have been subtly affected by aspects of the design and implementation of PowerPoint (over versions / time)? ...

It's absolutely been hugely useful at times, and, also, seemingly a preview for some Dante-style "ring of hell".

In any case, I salute Mr. Austin, offer my condolences to friends and family*, and ... well, I was going to point to a comedic take on PowerPoint that I love but it doesn't fit w/ this news, so, simply: R.I.P. Mr. Austin.

* Seriously, not just as a matter of form - I have used it for years through good and bad. I definitely feel some connection, though marginal comparatively.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#148
post #54

Dennis Austin dies at 76. * Born in Pittsburgh, studied engineering at the University of Virginia * Collaborated with Robert Gaskins at Forethought to create PowerPoint * Forethought acquired by Microsoft * By 1993, PowerPoint generating more than $100 million in sales * Product is widely used, but controversial and target of jokes > Mr. Austin and Gaskins acknowledged the complaints, but thought they were unfairly a…

Thank you for making a proper slide for this. (Suggestion: Remove "." from slide title.)

[deleted]

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#149

I’ll never forget the grade 9 science class Powerpoint presentation I did in 1998. I had each letter of every headline flying in one by one with a laser sound (pew pew pew). That was my first moment of magic with Powerpoint.

I actually created a two part acrion-animation movie lasting ~10 minutes when I was in 8th grade.

It had tanks, helicopters, and ammunitions flying.

All with sound.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to make.

Also got a graphic designer neighbor to do a title for my "movie" in AfterEffects.

Re: Dennis Austin, developer of PowerPoint, has died

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I surmise that Google workspace has managed to supplant it in a very real ways. For the last 3 places I’ve worked everything is done in Google Workspace. The only thing that Microsoft has a hold over is with Excel, that’s all anyone used from MS

Yep, I've long conjectured that Excel is what sells MS office. Every other product in the Office suite, including PowerPoint, has very viable alternatives. Excel has a 100% a strong-hold in most finance departments. I've worked with many finance professionals who's very first instinct for any type of work is to open Excel. When interacting with any data outside of Excel, they'll demand a way to get it into Excel.

Excel rules the roost because it is the GUI to manipulate tabular data.

To be honest: Is there an alternative?

I've been looking for a spreadsheet so that I can "drive spreadsheet from Python" rather than the usual "drive Python from spreadsheet".

As far as I can tell, that doesn't exist.

There are read-only variants to analyzed tabular data, but there seem to be none that allow me to do lots of editing in a visual way.

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