Why Microsoft Word must die • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#311

Post by k3n » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 2:43 AM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #129

GuiA wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your average college professor isn't going to learn how to use a version control system to suggest changes to his student's thesis-in-progress. Word has version control though, and it's appreciated by many in academia. Version control for humans is a Big Startup Idea, I wouldn't be surprised if Dropbox and Github were trying to tackle it (from 2 different angles: Dropbox from the "how do we get average the user to…

No offense, but using git for collaborative writing? That's like using nukes to get rid of mosquitoes. SVN would be a poor but better choice, but you'd rather use stypi, google docs or something like that.

Did you miss the story earlier in the year about the Princeton math students who did just that?

1. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/06/cades-witty-hea...

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#312

Post by wfunction » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 2:51 AM UTC

kijin wrote: post #132

wfunction wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft Word was never designed to be an ideal tool for creative writing... Word was designed to help office workers produce business documents And that's why they released a "Home and Student Edition".

Home Edition: "People are familiar with using Office at work, so they'll probably want to use Office as well when it's time to design that Garage Sale flyer." Student Edition: "Give them Office now at a discount, and they'll keep using (more expensive versions of) Office when they get a real job." Office is named Office for a reason. Its entire existence revolves around the typical 20th-century white-collar office. A…

Instead of being cynical, maybe consider the fact that students find it easier to type essays with Word than with other products, so Microsoft gave them a discount so they could afford it? Win-win.

Just a thought.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#313

Post by sinkasapa » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 4:08 AM UTC

kijin wrote: post #77

> Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer's use. Microsoft Word was never designed to be an ideal tool for creative writing, programming, or any such thing. It was designed to help office workers produce business documents (a) quickly, (b) in a format that integrates with all the other programs in the Office suite, and (b)…

I just finished writing a lengthy grant application where the humanities professor used Word and I used LibreOffice. We used the review functionality and I didn't even know there was supposed to be a problem. Though, I don't really do more than touch the surface with word processor programs because I don't personally like them very much.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#314

Post by sinkasapa » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 4:18 AM UTC

pmelendez wrote: post #199

DanBC wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Type a few word, hit "Save", and automatically get reasonable default fonts and margins? Check. Type a few more words, make some typos, have them fixed automatically? Check. Certain words need to be italicized or underlined? Check. Certain words need to be in a different font? Check. Who cares if it's consistent, the boss wants it bold so just make it bold. Indent the first line by X inches, double-space here, sing…

>"That's Abiword. A much smaller and cheaper piece of software. That is all that most office workers need. So why is Office, a huge piece of software the default?" Abiword's grammar checker is not nearly as good as Word's. That is specially in non-english laguanges. Also I would add to that list all the templates and design that Word brings out-of-box. I am a weird case because I use Abiword at work and Office at hom…

> That is specially in non-english laguanges.

From a linguist's point of view, the language that English is grammar checked against in Word has always been a broken approximation of an uninformed prescriptivist's version of English.

An example opinion from the guy who wrote the book on English grammar:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005061.h...

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#315

Post by analog31 » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 4:33 AM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #128

pasbesoin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been over a decade since I was a regular, daily Excel user ("power user", frankly). I still, today, haven't seen anything that matches what Excel was already back then. It has its quirks. It's also damned powerful and optimized. (I guess that's including its program-ability and the ability to interface it with external functionality via Win32 et al. I remember, for example, referencing IE 4, then 5, in order to…

What are the limitations of OpenOffice Calc compared to Excel and 10 year old Excel?

Slow, dog slow.

I've tried Open / Libre Office on both Windows and Linux targets. A benchmark: Create a couple columns of, say, 10000 x/y values, and see how long it takes to create a basic scatter plot.

Also, I've noticed that the user interface of Excel is a lot more polished. For instance it's more forgiving of exactly where I put the mouse pointer before clicking -- valuable for me because I get severe eyestrain headaches whenever I have to look too closely at the screen for too long.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#316

Post by sinkasapa » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 4:41 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131

redacted wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love LaTeX, I wrote a physics PhD thesis in it and many papers as well. It works phenomenally well up until the point it doesn't work at all. And when you need to go fix something it is a deep and frustrating rabbit hole in my experience.

The point where something is unfixable in LaTeX is much more complex than the point something is unfixable in Word, where I seem to jump down the rabbit hole on relatively simple documents.

That is a matter of opinion. I think the lack of source code is a problem of incredible complexity, in that overcoming that hurdle would require one to somehow force MS to fix something.

I think LaTeX starts marginally easy, gets complex and fiddly but then pretty much just stays at the same level of complex and fiddly. Word starts very easy, gets complicated quickly and eventually presents un-fixable problems, no matter what your skill level.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#317

Post by sinkasapa » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 4:54 AM UTC

redacted wrote: post #122

Ralith wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I use LaTeX and it gives me the results I want and I don't find myself spending inordinate amounts of time tweaking things, does that make me an intermediate user? I guess I had better stop learning.

I love LaTeX, I wrote a physics PhD thesis in it and many papers as well. It works phenomenally well up until the point it doesn't work at all. And when you need to go fix something it is a deep and frustrating rabbit hole in my experience.

Me too. I'm currently using it for the second time for a large multilingual dictionary. Both dictionaries are the first produced for these languages. People are thrilled at the results. It is so easy to create something beautiful with LaTeX.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#318

Post by Gormo » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 5:20 AM UTC

ShirtlessRod wrote: post #241

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just goes to show you the shabby general state of word processing software. I've been looking for something better than OO/Libre/MSWord/etc for years and avoided using LaTeX because the workflow is _so_ 80's. However, having recently decided to give up, and switched to using LaTeX, my worksheets, course notes, exams, and presentations have never looked better, and take about the same time, or less to create. I'l…

> avoided using LaTeX because the workflow is _so_ 80's. I've never understood this way of thinking. Either it works or it doesn't work -- the age should have nothing to do with it.

Didn't you know that everything is style and nothing is substance?

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#319

Post by Gormo » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 5:21 AM UTC

nonchalance wrote: post #3

The truly irreplaceable product is Excel. It is fraught with quirky bugs and limitations and odd conventions (how many people actually end up storing dates before the magic February 29 1900?), yet no alternative can hold a candle to Excel. On the other hand, there are solid alternatives to the other products in the office suite

> how many people actually end up storing dates before the magic February 29 1900?

Anyone engaging in any sort of historical research?

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#320

Post by 4dl0v3-p34c3 » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 5:31 AM UTC

We kinda had this talk, but it proved useless, since most users hardly change habits (the real reason to µ$ Word stagnation): http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/1mt8a5/nearly_everyon...

Even IE6.