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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:00:04 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
>> I tried KOffice. It works, but it doesn't seem to *do* very much, and
>> it's infuriatingly fiddly to operate. (Especially the spreadsheet. In
>> fact, I've yet to find any spreadsheet that works as well as Excel -
>> which is worrying, considering that Excel wasn't work fantastically.)
>
> oocalc works very well, I find.
I tried the spreadsheet from KOffice, Gnumeric, and OO Calc. I didn't
really like any of them. Calc has improved a bit since then, but it's
still a bit irritating to operate.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
With the help pages! :-) COM is the substrate that connects things together.
(I think I posted a link recently of someone showing how to use VBScript to
talk to a DB and put it into Excel, make a chart, and use the clipboard to
paste it into a word doc.)
Does OpenOffice actually have any sort of scripting built in, or interfaces
that you can drive externally?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:17:22 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> I said (or intended to say) that 5 years ago it was awful, and today
>>> it isn't. It just isn't great either.
>>
>> Well, I find it is actually pretty good - having used MS Office for
>> several years, I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (given
>> that it can import most MS Office documents that I've tried without any
>> issues at all, I'd say that's a pretty good way to tell how useful it
>> is).
>
> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they just
> haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?
> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far more
> logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to do, etc.
That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a
critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at
user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more
users and provide more options.
>>>> As I said, I use it *every* *single* *day* and it *isn't* awful, it's
>>>> quite good, and I find it provides all the functionality that most
>>>> end users need.
>>> I used it to write my CV.
>>>
>>> All of them.
>>
>> And?
>
> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific example
> right now.)
There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.
You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be
like MS Office, that's a starting point).
>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>
>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>
> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company logo,
> for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably working on
> improving.
What version have you used? Have you opened bugs on these issues?
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> oocalc works very well, I find - I do a *lot* of data manipulation in my
> job, and I find that oocalc works as well as MS Excel
Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most* people
didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a list editor.
MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations, while 1-2-3 added a
whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel won.
(Yes, yes, flame on for MS killing -1-2-3 with anticompetitiveness. That
isn't the point I'm making, even if it's true.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Warp wrote:
> When did that happen?
Ah... 2005? Maybe? I'm not completely sure.
> It either happened a decade ago, or the clerk was
> really incompetent.
It was definitely after 2000.
> Most people don't see anything wrong in copying commercial software.
> Not even if their attitude is put into doubt from a moral and ethical
> point of view.
>
> What really grinds my gears with that kind of attitude is that it's
> honest, paying customers who are paying for the software these people
> are copying for free. These people may make up excuses in their minds
> that they are just "stealing from a big rich company", when in fact what
> they are doing is taking advantage of people who actually pay for the
> software (and keep the "big rich company" alive).
>
> I buy software (mostly games, as everything else is open source), and
> part of that money I have earned and use to buy this software goes into
> paying for the people who steal the software. They are abusing *my* hard
> earned money. And that pisses me off.
Yeah, I dislike illegally copying anything. Like, given the choice
between copying one of my dad's CDs or just buying one for myself, I'd
rather go buy myself one.
It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
*care* any more...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:21:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
>
> With the help pages! :-) COM is the substrate that connects things
> together.
>
> (I think I posted a link recently of someone showing how to use VBScript
> to talk to a DB and put it into Excel, make a chart, and use the
> clipboard to paste it into a word doc.)
>
> Does OpenOffice actually have any sort of scripting built in, or
> interfaces that you can drive externally?
The go-oo implementation has a subset of VBA included in it (I understand
it's a fairly sizeable subset, but I've never needed to use it).
Jim
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:21:21 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:00:04 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>
>>> I tried KOffice. It works, but it doesn't seem to *do* very much, and
>>> it's infuriatingly fiddly to operate. (Especially the spreadsheet. In
>>> fact, I've yet to find any spreadsheet that works as well as Excel -
>>> which is worrying, considering that Excel wasn't work fantastically.)
>>
>> oocalc works very well, I find.
>
> I tried the spreadsheet from KOffice, Gnumeric, and OO Calc. I didn't
> really like any of them. Calc has improved a bit since then, but it's
> still a bit irritating to operate.
"irritating" how? In that "it's not Excel", or in that you couldn't
figure out the way to do specific things?
Jim
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>> I might be wrong here, but... MS Office provides MS Access, which is a
>> (low-powered) DB engine. IIRC, OpenOffice Calc isn't actually a DB
>> engine, it is *only* a front-end. You still need to find a DB from
>> somewhere, set it up and tell Calc how to talk to it.
>
> You mean oobase, surely - oocalc is a spreadsheet.
*facepalm*
Yes, of course... :-$
> But I do agree that oobase isn't the best piece of software - I've used
> it quite a bit for accessing things like Oracle tables, and the setup
> could be a lot smoother. Supports ODBC and JDBC, though, so that's
> something.
Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing about
MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you want to
do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most lightweight
thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice front-end and a design
tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for small things it's
right-sized.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:23:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> oocalc works very well, I find - I do a *lot* of data manipulation in
>> my job, and I find that oocalc works as well as MS Excel
>
> Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most*
> people didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a
> list editor. MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations,
> while 1-2-3 added a whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel
> won.
Yeah - that is interesting, but not surprising to me, either - 1-2-3 was
really geared towards usage as a number crunching tool (ala Visicalc),
but most users use it for list manipulation and other sorts of data
parsing (which is what I use it for, too). I do occasional math-related
stuff, but on balance, I'd say most of my use case is data manipulation
rather than calculation.
Jim
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
>> And *that* is exactly the invention that made Microsoft rich, right after
>> Digital Research showed them how to do it. Write the OS that isn't bound to
>> a specific hardware configuration.
>
> Yeah, that's why Windows works only on PC's?
You're missing my point. The point is that if you build hardware, there's a
cost in factories and parts and labor for each and every piece you sell. The
cost of selling an additional copy of Windows is (at this point) entirely
born by the people pre-installing it. MS doesn't even have to press CDs for
most of their sales.
The point is not that it works on lots of different processors. The point is
that Microsoft managed to turn hardware into a commodity, which lowers the
price of hardware, which means more people can buy hardware, which means MS
can sell more operating systems at the expense (in profits) of the hardware
manufacturers who are competing with each other.
Nobody competes with Apple's hardware. Lots of people compete with Dell,
Gateway, HP, etc.
> If you want an OS which is really not bound to a hardware configuration,
> try Linux or NetBSD. (NetBSD's motto is "of course it runs NetBSD!")
Hop in the way-back machine to when MS-DOS first came out. How many machines
running Z80's or 8080's were running CP/M compared to other operating
systems? How many 6502s were running AppleDOS vs something else? How many
TRS-80's could you run CP/M on? How many Vectors could you run TRS-DOS on?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
>
> With the help pages! :-) COM is the substrate that connects things
> together.
>
> (I think I posted a link recently of someone showing how to use VBScript
> to talk to a DB and put it into Excel, make a chart, and use the
> clipboard to paste it into a word doc.)
That sounds like the kind of thing that might occasionally be useful to
do... but I also don't know where to start.
> Does OpenOffice actually have any sort of scripting built in, or
> interfaces that you can drive externally?
I'm guessing JavaScript? (Or maybe even Java, of course...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:28:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> But I do agree that oobase isn't the best piece of software - I've used
>> it quite a bit for accessing things like Oracle tables, and the setup
>> could be a lot smoother. Supports ODBC and JDBC, though, so that's
>> something.
>
> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing about
> MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you want to
> do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most lightweight
> thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice front-end and a design
> tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for small things it's
> right-sized.
Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux to
do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend (heck,
my newsreader uses it).
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> The go-oo implementation has a subset of VBA included in it (I understand
> it's a fairly sizeable subset, but I've never needed to use it).
I'll have to look and see what it does.
I'd still prefer REXX. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:29:29 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm guessing JavaScript? (Or maybe even Java, of course...)
There is some Java support, yes.
Jim
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>> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
>> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing about
>> MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you want to
>> do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most lightweight
>> thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice front-end and a design
>> tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for small things it's
>> right-sized.
>
> Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux to
> do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend (heck,
> my newsreader uses it).
Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
can configure Base to talk to it.
In MS Access, you click "file > new", select a filename, and you're
done. See what I mean?
Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy
stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security,
anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm guessing JavaScript? (Or maybe even Java, of course...)
It's really not a question of the language or whether you can script the
software from inside. It's a question of whether you can get it to talk to
the outside through scripts. You need to be able to have *one* script talk
to *multiple* tools. If you can't have one button that fills in the
appropriate stuff after talking to three different programs, it's just not
as useful a scripting language as the COM-based stuff. COM is to MS what
pipelines are to UNIX. If the script is stored only in the one tool and it
can't talk to scripts running inside another tool, it's like the shell
without pipes.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy
> stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security,
> anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.
Yeah. Access is really MS's version of SQLite. It wasn't really intended for
end users to use it. It was so programmers would have a place to store stuff
their program used if they needed that sort of storage rather than
individual bulk files.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
>> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they just
>> haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
>
> What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?
Have series 1 plotted against the Y-axis scale at the left end of the
chart, and series 2 plotted against the (unrelated) Y-axis scale at the
right end of the chart.
Come to think of it, I think I also had trouble plotting a bar chart
with a line graph overlayed...
>> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far more
>> logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to do, etc.
>
> That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a
> critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at
> user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more
> users and provide more options.
Linux used to be almost unusable. It's got a lot better... but now it
seems to have plataued out again. So it's not just a function of being OSS.
>> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
>> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific example
>> right now.)
>
> There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.
> You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be
> like MS Office, that's a starting point).
Oh, I *like* that it isn't like MS Office. It's just that certain things
are either well-hidden or just not implemented yet.
>>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
>> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company logo,
>> for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably working on
>> improving.
>
> What version have you used? Have you opened bugs on these issues?
To file a bug, I'd have to pin down exactly what it's doing wrong. Just
saying "I converted this document once and the headers came out wrong"
isn't going to help anybody. (Especially since I can't show them the
document. It's confidential commercial property, after all.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:26:07 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
> *care* any more...
Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
--
FE
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>>>> I tried KOffice. It works, but it doesn't seem to *do* very much, and
>>>> it's infuriatingly fiddly to operate. (Especially the spreadsheet. In
>>>> fact, I've yet to find any spreadsheet that works as well as Excel -
>>>> which is worrying, considering that Excel wasn't work fantastically.)
>>> oocalc works very well, I find.
>> I tried the spreadsheet from KOffice, Gnumeric, and OO Calc. I didn't
>> really like any of them. Calc has improved a bit since then, but it's
>> still a bit irritating to operate.
>
> "irritating" how? In that "it's not Excel", or in that you couldn't
> figure out the way to do specific things?
Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
Little UI quirks like that. And also some bigger things, like not
supporting certain chart options.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Darren New wrote:
> Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most*
> people didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a
> list editor. MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations,
> while 1-2-3 added a whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel won.
It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! >_< If you need a database, for the love of
God, USE A DATABASE! GRR!!
Sorry, rant over...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>> *care* any more...
>
> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
...really??
Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:40:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
The version I use does that.
> like not supporting certain chart options.
Such as?
Jim
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>>> *care* any more...
>> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>
> ...really??
>
> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
No, your copy is still illegal...
--
FE
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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>>>> *care* any more...
>>> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>>
>> ...really??
>>
>> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
>
> No, your copy is still illegal...
Awww! :-(
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:39:47 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
>>> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they
>>> just haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
>>
>> What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?
>
> Have series 1 plotted against the Y-axis scale at the left end of the
> chart, and series 2 plotted against the (unrelated) Y-axis scale at the
> right end of the chart.
>
> Come to think of it, I think I also had trouble plotting a bar chart
> with a line graph overlayed...
I think I did something like that recently, but I'd have to go look.
>>> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far
>>> more logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to
>>> do, etc.
>>
>> That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a
>> critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at
>> user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more
>> users and provide more options.
>
> Linux used to be almost unusable. It's got a lot better... but now it
> seems to have plataued out again. So it's not just a function of being
> OSS.
Sure, it's not a function of being OSS, true. But again, "almost
unusable" isn't a helpful description. My wife uses Linux daily. I've
used it for over a decade.
Linux isn't Windows: Most people who say that Linux is "unusable" are
expecting a free version of Windows. It isn't, it's something different.
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
That's a pretty good article someone wrote a few years ago explaining
this.
>>> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
>>> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific
>>> example right now.)
>>
>> There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.
>> You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be
>> like MS Office, that's a starting point).
>
> Oh, I *like* that it isn't like MS Office. It's just that certain things
> are either well-hidden or just not implemented yet.
Well, either that or you don't know how to use them and are too
<adjective> to ask for help (proud, perhaps?).
>>>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>>> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
>>> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company
>>> logo, for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably
>>> working on improving.
>>
>> What version have you used? Have you opened bugs on these issues?
>
> To file a bug, I'd have to pin down exactly what it's doing wrong. Just
> saying "I converted this document once and the headers came out wrong"
> isn't going to help anybody. (Especially since I can't show them the
> document. It's confidential commercial property, after all.)
No, you don't really have to go to that extent. Duplicate the document
with a generic graphic and use that. Most people *think* you have to be
very specific about what the problem is (so specific that if you coded in
the language, you could fix the bug), and that's not generally true.
Jim
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:34:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
>>> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing
>>> about MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you
>>> want to do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most
>>> lightweight thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice
>>> front-end and a design tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for
>>> small things it's right-sized.
>>
>> Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux
>> to do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend
>> (heck, my newsreader uses it).
>
> Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
> a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
> commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
> tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
> can configure Base to talk to it.
Um, no, generally the app will list mysql as a requirement, but then will
script the building of the database. Or if it's SQLite, then it's pre-
created by the application. Running Linux applications isn't as complex
as you seem to think it is.
And as for the database creation, I tend to use something like Webmin or
MySQLAdmin (a PHP interface) which simplifies things. But I'm also
comfortable using the mysql command-line client as well.
> In MS Access, you click "file > new", select a filename, and you're
> done. See what I mean?
>
> Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy
> stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security,
> anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.
I'm not arguing that.
Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as easy
to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I don't use
it that often).
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
> The version I use does that.
Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers with
exactly this sort of thing. I ranted here, and about two days later,
suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I don't know
what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it was, but
somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to put the
cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me. I must have
unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or something, because
it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it did.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE!
Sure it is.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:07:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (
>> Maybe for the features *you* use. I don't remember seeing how to get it
>> to talk COM to a SQL database so you can automate importing a chart from
>> Calc into Word based on a database query.
>
> True, that's not something I've ever needed to use, but then again, I
> probably wouldn't look to use a specific technology (COM) to accomplish
> the task, largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
That, and other cool stuff, like the fact that you can put it on a shared
drive and have multiple people working on the same file without conflict.
All kinds of "power" stuff that people who don't use it for a living do use.
Kind of like showing the boss a unit test framework integrated into the IDE
and him going "Yeah, so? I have an editor and a compiler." It's stuff you
might not ever use unless your job is making and sharing these complex
presentations with other people.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:03:21 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next
>>> line.
>> The version I use does that.
>
> Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers
> with exactly this sort of thing. I ranted here, and about two days
> later, suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I
> don't know what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it
> was, but somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to
> put the cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me.
> I must have unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or
> something, because it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it
> did.
LOL
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>> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
>> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE!
>
> Sure it is.
Unfortunately, people (especially our IT department) keep trying to use
Excel when they should be using a database.
Stuff like records that multiple people need to access, which will grow
larger and larger over time, which might need to be sorted in various
ways and even searched. That kind of thing. Stuff that even Access can
do very easily, but which Excel really isn't geared towards.
Still, what can you do?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:08:31 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:07:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (
>>> Maybe for the features *you* use. I don't remember seeing how to get
>>> it to talk COM to a SQL database so you can automate importing a chart
>>> from Calc into Word based on a database query.
>>
>> True, that's not something I've ever needed to use, but then again, I
>> probably wouldn't look to use a specific technology (COM) to accomplish
>> the task, largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
>
> That, and other cool stuff, like the fact that you can put it on a
> shared drive and have multiple people working on the same file without
> conflict. All kinds of "power" stuff that people who don't use it for a
> living do use.
Docs and spreadsheets in such a way? I don't have a use case for
something like that, but I can see where someone might.
> Kind of like showing the boss a unit test framework integrated into the
> IDE and him going "Yeah, so? I have an editor and a compiler." It's
> stuff you might not ever use unless your job is making and sharing these
> complex presentations with other people.
True. I do share stuff with other people, but co-creation of documents
tends to be done using remote viewing software (for example).
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Docs and spreadsheets in such a way? I don't have a use case for
> something like that, but I can see where someone might.
Yes. It also handles the locking and conflict resolution and stuff. It's
handy when you have multiple people working concurrently but not
simultaneously to have version control built in that you don't have to
understand how to work. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Last time I checked, if you want an office suite, you can buy MS Office
> or...
>
> ...uh, yeah, exactly. It's not that MS Office is good enough that nobody
> will pay to switch. It's that there's nothing to switch *to*. Like I
> say, MS carefully arranges it so that users have no alternatives. That
> way they don't have to waste money on, say, making a product that people
> want to use.
I was reading the Wikipedia article on real-time multi-user text editors,
and it was a bit disturbing.
"a product called Writely saw explosive user growth and was bought by Google
in March 2006 (now called Google Docs & Spreadsheets). It provides
simultaneous edits on the entirety of a document, though changes from other
users are only reflected after the client program polling the server."
"Another early web-based solution was JotSpotLive, in which line-by-line
simultaneous editing was available in near-realtime. However, after Google's
purchase of parent company JotSpot in November 2006, the site was closed."
"EtherPad was the first web editor to provide a smooth, character-by-
character real-time performance, something that previously was only
available in desktop editors. [...] EtherPad was subsequently acquired by
Google, which allocated the EtherPad team to work within the Wave project."
What's next? Hiring the entire 0x539.de dev group so they stop working on
Gobby? (*open source* realtime editor)
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of
>>>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to
>>>>> *care* any more...
>>>> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years
>>>> ago...
>>>
>>> ...really??
>>>
>>> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
>>
>> No, your copy is still illegal...
>
> Awww! :-(
But now you can throw it away and *then* download their free version.
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Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
>> The version I use does that.
>
> Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers
> with
> exactly this sort of thing. I ranted here, and about two days later,
> suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I don't know
> what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it was, but
> somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to put the
> cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me. I must
> have unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or something,
> because it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it did.
Being a Mercurial fan and Git hater, I was recently forced (once again) to
use git, and I don't know *how*, my brain suddenly finished forming a
complete mental model mirroring how git works. And it's like I suddenly know
how to use it. I guess I already managed to learn most of it over time, what
happened recently was that the puzzle pieces got put together.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Interestingly enough, Microsoft beat 1-2-3 by noticing that *most*
>> people didn't use the spreadsheet for calculations. They used it as a
>> list editor. MS added a whole bunch of list-manipulation operations,
>> while 1-2-3 added a whole bunch of sophisticated math stuff, and Excel
>> won.
>
> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
>
> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! >_< If you need a database, for the love of
> God, USE A DATABASE! GRR!!
>
> Sorry, rant over...
I once searched in Google for "excel database", trying to find a funny rant
I had read about the stupid term. Instead, I found tons of tutorials on how
to make excel databases. AUGH ><
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Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.
>
> With the help pages! :-) COM is the substrate that connects things
> together.
>
> (I think I posted a link recently of someone showing how to use VBScript
> to talk to a DB and put it into Excel, make a chart, and use the clipboard
> to paste it into a word doc.)
>
> Does OpenOffice actually have any sort of scripting built in, or
> interfaces that you can drive externally?
There is a module called "uno" that lets you talk to OpenOffice from Python.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Python
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> There is a module called "uno" that lets you talk to OpenOffice from Python.
I see. Looks like they're basically reinventing COM and CORBA without
following any actual standards, like COM or CORBA. It's a start, I guess. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:web.4beaea3a4c27b058ae92d9930@news.povray.org...
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> > OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right
> > now? ;-)
>
> **me too**
>
> It's unfortunate, though, that large corporations in the modern world
don't have
> MORE Babbage types working for them (with the freedom to keep pushing for
> changes and improvements); it sure would eliminate lots of bad products
as well as good products
> from
> entering the marketplace--cars, software, etc. Taking the time to
actually get
> it 'right' in the first place seems to be a lost philosophy, among many
> companies...whether due to economic constraints or whatever. Something
Babbage
> apparently didn't have to worry about.
Big part of "right" is "time" and "compromise". Any half assed product today
is worth infinitely more to me than a perfect product in 50 years, when I'll
most likely be worm fodder. Like it or not, we owe our current way of life
to quick development and turnaround times due to tight competition to
marketplace. Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were
improved to the point of having no side effects at all.
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>> Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
>> a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
>> commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
>> tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
>> can configure Base to talk to it.
>
> Um, no, generally the app will list mysql as a requirement, but then will
> script the building of the database. Or if it's SQLite, then it's pre-
> created by the application. Running Linux applications isn't as complex
> as you seem to think it is.
>
> And as for the database creation, I tend to use something like Webmin or
> MySQLAdmin (a PHP interface) which simplifies things. But I'm also
> comfortable using the mysql command-line client as well.
I'm not talking about "I installed this application which uses MySQL".
I'm talking about "I want to use OO Base with a MySQL backend to quickly
throw together a simple database". MS Access serves this use case much
better.
> I'm not arguing that.
>
> Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as easy
> to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I don't use
> it that often).
Mmm, OK. I didn't know that.
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Darren New wrote:
> Looks like they're basically reinventing COM and CORBA without
> following any actual standards, like COM or CORBA.
Great. It's 8:56 and I've already had my morning LOL! :-D
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Darren New wrote:
> Now, some of these may be out of
> business, but that's not really to the point, because they *were*
> competition when they were around, and they couldn't compete.
Couldn't compete with MS products? Or couldn't compete with MS's
underhanded not-strictly-legal anti-competetive practices? That is the
operative question.
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somebody wrote:
> Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were
> improved to the point of having no side effects at all.
Just as a minor technical point: That's impossible.
There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
that have *no* effects.
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On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:55:48 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>> Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as
>> easy to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I
>> don't use it that often).
>
> Mmm, OK. I didn't know that.
As had I not, until I ran oobase and looked at it again. It's been a
while.
Jim
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On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:03:44 +0100, Invisible wrote:
> somebody wrote:
>
>> Imagine if drugs were not made available until they were improved to
>> the point of having no side effects at all.
>
> Just as a minor technical point: That's impossible.
>
> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
> that have *no* effects.
I think that's somebody's point. If we waited until the product was
perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or whatever).
Jim
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Invisible wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Now, some of these may be out of business, but that's not really to
>> the point, because they *were* competition when they were around, and
>> they couldn't compete.
>
> Couldn't compete with MS products? Or couldn't compete with MS's
> underhanded not-strictly-legal anti-competetive practices? That is the
> operative question.
Given that most of those OSes ran on machines where MS-DOS didn't, I'd say
the former.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
>> that have *no* effects.
>
> I think that's somebody's point.
I had to parse that twice! ._.
> If we waited until the product was
> perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or whatever).
It's not a good analogy. Drugs don't time a long time to ship because it
takes time to improve them. They take a long time to ship because of all
the multiple levels of safety testing that have to happen. (Speaking as
somebody who works for a company in that line of business...)
I don't disagree that it takes time and money to build better software.
I'm just saying this isn't a good analogy. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Fri, 14 May 2010 18:42:49 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> There are two kinds of drugs: Those that have side-effects, and those
>>> that have *no* effects.
>>
>> I think that's somebody's point.
>
> I had to parse that twice! ._.
Yeah, as I wrote it, I thought "this could be quite confusing". ;-)
>> If we waited until the product was
>> perfect, it would never ship (whether it's software, drugs, or
>> whatever).
>
> It's not a good analogy. Drugs don't time a long time to ship because it
> takes time to improve them. They take a long time to ship because of all
> the multiple levels of safety testing that have to happen. (Speaking as
> somebody who works for a company in that line of business...)
>
> I don't disagree that it takes time and money to build better software.
> I'm just saying this isn't a good analogy. ;-)
Well, yeah, it's not really a good analogy after a point, but there is a
sort of iterative process used in developing new drugs, too - I think
that's what somebody was trying to say. ;-)
Jim
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