> a programmer's text editor (such as ed
YES. Clearly the capricious abregation of Ed was where we went wrong. Let the faithful return!
Why Microsoft Word must die
321–330 of 387 posts
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#322Without putting too much thought into the subject, the state of Office in the enterprise upsets me. Over the last six years I've gradually rolled away from Outlook and Word in favour of Google Apps / Drive. True, it's not perfect, but for the 'lay user' (students per se?) it is sufficient and the barrier to entry is low.
My real concern with Office comes from what if in the future I'm not in a position where the company I work for is still tied to the Office Suite of products. Productivity wise, switching back to Office (even Office365) is a real killer for someone that is proceeding efficient at the former.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#323> 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)…
> Microsoft probably consulted with a bunch of Big Business customers when they designed Office. Yep, the kind of Big Business that uses Java classes like EnterpriseBusinessInterconnectInterfaceFactoryFactoryFactory. Basically, you pulled this out of your butt because it hit the right notes and because it fit the preconceived notions of the readership of HN. WYSIWYG word processing was actually pioneered at Xerox PAR…
> Java classes like EnterpriseBusinessInterconnectInterfaceFactoryFactoryFactory are a direct result of the deliberate crippling of the Smalltalk runtime model that Java was based on. The very small and minimalist Smalltalk runtime model was another product of Xerox PARC, BTW.
Actually, they are a consequence how easy Java allows to write such type of code and how enterprise architects design software.
I have seen EnterpriseBusinessInterconnectInterfaceFactoryFactoryFactory examples in the enterprise done in lots of languages.
The same way there are developers that write FORTRAN in any language, there are those that make Skyscrapper designs in any language.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our startup takes a third approach: automatically detect when one document is a new version of another, so that software can take care of the version control, while the humans can go on being human. We're bringing version control to people who collaborate by email, starting with Gmail. All people have to do is exchange drafts by email (like normal!), and we infer the history, as if they've been using git. We're looki…
This looks quite interesting and quite topical to a discussion I had just yesterday during an interview. I almost clicked the installer but hesitated. A link that discusses the impact and especially any issues if/when your product was uninstalled would be reassuring.
Sorry for the delay: busy weekend. I added a FAQ
https://draftable.com/gmail/faq
with the answer to your question (and more), but I'll answer here too:
We don't modify the data in your Gmail account, so if you try Draftable, then uninstall it, your Gmail account won't be altered. Furthermore, if you disable Draftable before uninstalling it, we'll delete our index and revoke our access to your account.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#325Earlier 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".
I purchased the "Home and Student Edition" for my wife to use on her new MacBook Air. A few months ago she started writing short fiction, which we have since self-published on Kindle. We had to switch to Libre Office, though, because when I contacted Microsoft support and asked them about the "Non-Commercial use" restriction, they told me writing a novel counts as commercial activity.
I'm sorry but what did you just say? you can't write something on MS Word home edition and sell it for cash? seriously, i had no idea you could restrict something so basic as a word processor - FFS that's absurd!
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Version control in Word (and pretty much any WYSIWYG editor) is fundamentally broken. I can't recall how many days of work I lost just because 1 out of 15 co-authors was not able to use it and fucked up everyone's text. And normally there's just 1 out of 15 that IS able to use it. If you're authoring papers on your own, heh, you could just be using pen and paper.
The problem there is having 15 co-authors. Really And if some of them can't use it, teach them. And revert to the previously non-fucked up version (it's on someone's email by the name of Article_1_fixed_2_corrections_10_10.docx)
I had to deal with that situation before but I was actually the middle of three parties. (I was B of A-B-C where. A and C was not talking to each other for political and linguistic reasons.) It was nothing but a mess, my inbox would be piled with revised document that often lost tracking, one party sending revised document based on outdated version. (And not sure which version was it.)
Something I like about version control is that it at least ensures continuity of the version.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Microsoft Word was never designed to be an ideal tool for creative writing, programming, or any such thing. He pointed that out. And he pointed out that the industry was still foisting it on him. That is why he wants it to die. This was the summary at the end of the article in fact.
Then shouldn't he be far more mad at his industry, not the tool?
Why blame the people you know when you can blame a piece of software that can't fight back?
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If they're presenting work for review I ask them to write it in markdown." Perhaps a git repository to track feedback and changes? Do they need to use diagrams or images at all?
git is something I'm working towards. Ideally I'd like github to be our learning platform.
I thought that might be the direction that you were moving in, and I think that is a really good idea for your particular students to get used to a source code repository and version control quickly.
One thing I have not looked at yet but may do in the future is git-annex [1] and the associated GUI [2]. I'm hoping I can use git-annex to sync folders between laptops just using an external drive.
[1] http://git-annex.branchable.com/ [2] http://git-annex.branchable.com/assistant/
That will allow music/video/images to be synced as well as text.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#329Earlier 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…
Actually, that's what I was trying to say. Word's review functions appear as pretty colored bubbles and a bunch of icons on the Ribbon. It's easy enough even for Humanities professors to use on a daily basis, despite the fact that as a VCS, it's strictly inferior to something like git. Actually, I think it's popular precisely because it ain't git. Most professors who are fluent in Word's review functions would be hop…
I think you're absurdly underestimating people. A diff is a bunch of lines removed, and lines added. That's a pretty damn natural representation.
As for git's complexity, it's all in its completely opaque display of its internal state. A chain of deltas - diffs - isn't complicated. It's all git's (perverse) desire to follow the exact-same command-line interface as cat and awk, when neither contain persistent state.
Re: Why Microsoft Word must die
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree that word's review functions are really simple. Which is why even all legal/contract documents are exchanged back and forth between companies in Word today. The hassle is that its done over email - sending versions of attachments back and forth. Nice naming convention helps, but there are definitely better solutions to do the same online today.
Actually, most big law firms do not use the built in track changes function in Word, they use more specialized (and in my experience, better performing) software that take a "before" and "after" Word file and then generate a nice "redlined" version showing insertions, deletions, moves, etc. in different colors. Examples include Workshare DeltaView and Litera Change Pro.
Word itself allows you to compare multiple files nowadays. (Though I don't know if it does three-way merges, yet.)