And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:17:07 -0000, Gilles Tran  
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:


> de
> news: op.t7s2zm10c3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>
>> But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
>> removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral  
>> to
>> the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in  
>> Word,
>> but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
>> poised for use.
>
> My point is only that one cannot claim that some features are useless  
> when they are actually used intensively by parts of the user base.

They're useless for a given value of uselessness, do I add this feature in  
that's used by 25% of our customer base as an installed feature or as an  
optional component? If it's plonked in as a base feature then 75% of  
customers will have it sitting there taking up space and never being used.

> Is MS supposed to make styles optional because Andy couldn't figure them  
> out? User
> requirements are real.

I'm using Firefox at times, I've added in an ad-blocker, flash blocker and  
session manager, plus a few other things that come with Opera as standard.  
Do I think Opera should make these optional - no because they integrate  
with the browser so well and the executable + main library stands at under  
3.2Kb. Now if it made Opera big and fat they'd yes they should be optional.

> Lots of people who are serious about using a word
> processor need styles and collaboration tools. Lots of people who are
> serious about using spreadsheets need automation. Lots of people who work
> with presentation software need to embed video.

Yes and am I saying those options shouldn't be there? No I'm not what I'm  
asking is does the program dynamically load in the "embed video" library  
when such an action is attempted or is it just loaded on principle?

> There's no denying that there's a bloat issue with many major  
> applications.
> Word 2003 had 31 toolbars and 1500 commands... Even Adobe plans a  
> thorough
> cleanup of the Photoshop interface.

But that's not bloat unless there's a duplication of actions; unless  
you're counting memory usage to display all the toolbars and menus.

> Still the solution is not to assume that
> "most users" are a bunch of dummies who don't need better than what was
> available in 1990. And about home users, my 75-year-old dad may not use
> styles, but he still enjoys Word's ability to work flawlessly with  
> bilingual
> documents with parts written in different character sets. Is he an
> exception? I don't think so.

No and I'm not saying users are dummies (ignorant perhaps), what is being  
said is that the core functionality of the program is being expanded at  
the expense of memory when the majority of users may not be using the  
majority of the functions.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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