Darren New wrote:
> "If the changes are made on a server without Excel 2007 installed and 
> the resulting spreadsheet is distributed to employees throughout the 
> organization, then every single employee will have to get through a full 
> spreadsheet recalculation (arbitrarily lengthy) next time they open the 
> spreadsheet."

Heck, I have Excel 2000 on one machine here, and Excel 2003 on another, 
and I can't even open a 2000 spreadsheet in 2003 without it going 
through a full recalculation. And he's complaining that if he *changes* 
the spreadsheet, it goes through a full recalculation? :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Darren New wrote:

> If "lay out the lines of text like Word97 does" is important, you're 
> already locked in.

Only because that algorithm isn't documented. If the algorithm *were* 
documented, this wouldn't be the case...

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>> Note that there are no important parts of this standard that are not 
>> completely defined. 
> 
> But that's my point. Are the parts that aren't well-defined in OOXML 
> also "important"? Or they just stuff that Word needs to put there to 
> make sure that when you export it and then import it again, you get 
> exactly the same results?

You know, PDF manages to look the same everywhere. This clearly 
demonstrates how "impossible" it is to write such a standard.

>> The trouble is, the M$ standard is something that looks like a 
>> standard, but would be really hard for anybody except M$ to implement. 
> 
> So the complaint isn't with the standard as much as it is with how 
> difficult it is to understand or implement the standard?
> 
> I hate to say this, but there's all kinds of standards like that out 
> there. :-)  Especially in the telephone world.

You know, PDF specifies exactly how stuff should look on a page - and 
*lots* of people have implemented that. HTML & CSS allow you to 
construct complex layouts, and these are also widely implemented.

>> Basically, the way the "standard" is written means that the only way 
>> to implement it is to duplicate Word. You can't [easily] implement it 
>> in a slightly different way. And that's not the point of standards...
> 
> Agreed that the only way to implement all of it would be to essentially 
> duplicate every aspect of what Word does. But that's my point. If this 
> document standard is a way of storing Word documents, and you want to be 
> able to store them and bring them back into Word without change, you 
> need to dump to the file every ability that Word has.

That's kind of the point. It shouldn't *be* a way of storing Word 
documents, it should be a way of storing documents.

> If you don't want to implement Word97WrapMode in your word processor, 
> then ignore that flag, yes?

You make it sound as if this is the *only* Word-specific part of the spec.

>> Of course, a document format standard *already* exists.
> 
> It looks like the standard allows you to include arbitrary scripts in 
> arbitrary scripting languages. Kind of hard to ensure interoperability.

Yeah. HTML has had this ability for years, and they've had no end of 
trouble ensuring interoperability. Oh, wait...

> It also lets you name the fonts without including the glyphs. Again, 
> hard to ensure that what comes out is what went in.

Your point? Word's native .doc format has precisely the same flaw. As 
does PostScript, actually. And PDF, depending on your settings...

>> And it's pretty
>> obvious why M$ wants to invent another one rather than use the 
>> existing one...
> 
> Well, sure. Because the existing one can't store Word documents. That's 
> kind of my point.

I refute that.

I have converted Word documents to ODF and back again, with little or no 
change to the document.



The motivation of M$ is very clear to see here. They want to claim that 
because they've documented this "standard", anybody that wants to could 
implement it, and hence any data stored in this format isn't locked up 
in an unreadable format.

The fact is, this is not the case. Nobody is going to be able to 
implement this standard properly, because it is specifically and 
deliberately designed to be impossible to implement. And that should not 
be allowed.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:47f6ffc2$1@news.povray.org...

> Is there *any* SQL server that actually follows the standard? *I* sure
> haven't found one. Better get rid of all the databases the government
> keeps too.

There's no database product I've seen that fully and only implements the
SQL:2003 standard, forget the latest one. Most products implement somewhere
between some and most of the standard, then add their own features on top.
It's what makes the idea of 'database portability' such a joke

But then, the latest SQL standard is a mess. That  it's not freely available
doesn't help.

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>> Is there *any* SQL server that actually follows the standard? *I* sure
>> haven't found one. Better get rid of all the databases the government
>> keeps too.
> 
> There's no database product I've seen that fully and only implements the
> SQL:2003 standard, forget the latest one. Most products implement somewhere
> between some and most of the standard, then add their own features on top.
> It's what makes the idea of 'database portability' such a joke

On the other hand, they all implement more than enough of the standard 
that you can write applications that can target arbitrary database engines.

Additionally, there's absolutely no need to scrap database engines when 
exporting data from one engine to another is so trivial... Sure, the 
database integrity logic and indexes and constraints and so forth are 
another matter, but the *data* is easy to get at. The same doesn't apply 
to Word...

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47f72f3f@news.povray.org...

> On the other hand, they all implement more than enough of the standard
> that you can write applications that can target arbitrary database
engines.

If you like writitng apps with one hand tied behind your back, that is.

I've tried writing 'database portable code' I'd rather eat glass than do
that again....

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Darren New wrote:
> Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
>> I think the problem is that we should be defining a standard to store 
>> text documents, not Word documents...
> 
> We have one already. ;-)
> 
> Seriously, the only reason this came up is because lots of people are 
> using Word, and their governments basically said "You shouldn't be using 
> Word, because it's not a standard."
> 
Not exactly. Governments were saying that they want their documents to 
be readable in the future. Using an undocumented proprietary binary 
format won't work. There is no guarantee that any MS product will 
support the current file formats in 20 years time, nor that the company 
will even exists, nor that e.g. Word 2003 will run on then available 
hardware. Hence they decided that from now on, or at least as soon as 
possible, data should be saved in a format that is documented. 
Governments being what they are, they also decided to artificially 
enhance competition by requiring that the standard is public available 
and implementable by anyone. Although MS is the most visible target, 
more companies have to change their behaviour.*)

There are two major ways in viewing MS attempt at a standard. One is by 
looking if it achieves the primary goal of this law. I think it does. MS 
documents written in this standard will be readable in 20 years time. 
The other one is to take into account the other objective, i.e. to 
increase the competition. Then it seems to fail miserably, and by 
design. It has been pointed out that this is logical for a company to do 
so. I think part of the underlying differences in point of view in both 
camps is the familiar division whether companies are bound by the ten 
commandments or not (where the ten commandments are short hand for 
ethical and law abiding behaviour).

[snip]

> 
>> It does not bring any of the benefits a standard should bring.
> 
> Right. I'm not saying the standard is good, or should pass. I'm saying 
> the arguments against it that I've seen are stupid arguments. :-)
> 
They only seem stupid if you disagree with the (hidden) premises of the 
speaker. Most arguments are along the line of 'this is not how you 
define a standard'. If you think that they should not have been forced 
to create a standard in the first place, these arguments may seem void.


*) Personally I can't wait until every medical company will be forced to 
save patient data in a format that will make it possible for every 
researcher to reanalyze the patient data in an attempt to improve the 
diagnostic value. Even if it costs me part of my job security. Just 
Thursday I did two minor reverse engineerings of some data files to see 
whether I could reanalyze 24 hour ambulatory ECG measurements of 
patients and if an ECG recording system was able to record at 8kHz, as 
specified, so we could use it for rats too. Answers were yes and no 
respectively, but I would have preferred to spend that time on my own 
project.

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andrel wrote:
> [snip]

I agree with all that. :-)

> They only seem stupid if you disagree with the (hidden) premises of the 
> speaker. Most arguments are along the line of 'this is not how you 
> define a standard'.

I primarily mean that most of the arguments seem to be along the lines 
of "OOXML doesn't tell me how to X, so it's a bad standard", while ODF 
doesn't tell you how to X either. Or "You can't implement everything in 
the standard without recreating Word", when what's in the file is, by 
definition, everything that Word can do. That's the sense in which the 
arguments seem silly to me.

Sure, if your premise is "we shouldn't have to reimplement Word in order 
to implement everything in the standard", then such arguments make sense.

I think what it comes down to is, given the standard, the arguments 
against it are mostly kind of silly. However, were you to create a new 
standard from scratch, you wouldn't put in the kind of stuff that you 
need to put into OOXML to make it preserve all the semantics of current 
Word documents. And most arguments I've seen confuse these two situations.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Darren New escribió:
> Sure, if your premise is "we shouldn't have to reimplement Word in order 
> to implement everything in the standard", then such arguments make sense.

We shouldn't have to reimplement Word to change the value of a single cell.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Note that there are no important parts of this standard that are not 
>>> completely defined. 
>>
>> But that's my point. Are the parts that aren't well-defined in OOXML 
>> also "important"? Or they just stuff that Word needs to put there to 
>> make sure that when you export it and then import it again, you get 
>> exactly the same results?
> 
> You know, PDF manages to look the same everywhere. This clearly 
> demonstrates how "impossible" it is to write such a standard.

I didn't say it's impossible to write such a standard. But then you've 
also taken away the ability to make it do something differently.

> You know, PDF specifies exactly how stuff should look on a page - and 
> *lots* of people have implemented that. HTML & CSS allow you to 
> construct complex layouts, and these are also widely implemented.

Right. But PDF is telling you how to render an already laid-out 
document. You're not going to be able to take a PDF file and (say) 
change the size of the font, and deduce what the layout is supposed to be.

> That's kind of the point. It shouldn't *be* a way of storing Word 
> documents, it should be a way of storing documents.

And that's basically the argument against it.

>> If you don't want to implement Word97WrapMode in your word processor, 
>> then ignore that flag, yes?
> 
> You make it sound as if this is the *only* Word-specific part of the spec.

No, there's lots. I'm just picking that one because it's a perfect example.

> Yeah. HTML has had this ability for years, and they've had no end of 
> trouble ensuring interoperability. Oh, wait...

Yes. Go talk to any javascript author. In spite of javascript also being 
a standard. :-)

>> It also lets you name the fonts without including the glyphs. Again, 
>> hard to ensure that what comes out is what went in.
> 
> Your point? Word's native .doc format has precisely the same flaw. As 
> does PostScript, actually. And PDF, depending on your settings...

Right. So why do people complain that they can't look at the Word format 
and figure out how it's going to wrap the lines?

>> Well, sure. Because the existing one can't store Word documents. 
>> That's kind of my point.
> 
> I refute that.
> 
> I have converted Word documents to ODF and back again, with little or no 
> change to the document.

And did they use the Word97LineBreak conventions? :-)

> The motivation of M$ is very clear to see here. They want to claim that 
> because they've documented this "standard", anybody that wants to could 
> implement it, and hence any data stored in this format isn't locked up 
> in an unreadable format.

Didn't you just say you converted Word documents to ODF and back again? 
How unreadable could the format be?

This is exactly my point. You can't have it both ways. You can't say 
"Open Office is great because it can read Word documents" in one 
paragraph and then say "Word sucks because nobody can read its 
documents" in the next.

> The fact is, this is not the case. Nobody is going to be able to 
> implement this standard properly, because it is specifically and 
> deliberately designed to be impossible to implement. And that should not 
> be allowed.

It can't be impossible to implement, as Microsoft has implemented it. 
Any part that's not specified is open to interpretation. If the 
word-wrap isn't specified, then any implementation is OK. It might not 
come out exactly like Word, but it's still an implementation of the 
standard.


-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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