"One of Babbage’s most serious flaws was his inability to stop 
tinkering. No sooner would he send a drawing to the machine shop than he 
would find a better way to perform the task and would order work stopped 
until he had finished pursuing the new line. By and large this flaw kept 
Babbage from ever finishing anything."

OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right 
now? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> "One of Babbage’s most serious flaws was his inability to stop
> tinkering. No sooner would he send a drawing to the machine shop than he
> would find a better way to perform the task and would order work stopped
> until he had finished pursuing the new line. By and large this flaw kept
> Babbage from ever finishing anything."
> 
> OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right
> now? ;-)

_o/ *raises hand*

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
> "One of Babbage’s most serious flaws was his inability to stop 
> tinkering. No sooner would he send a drawing to the machine shop than he 
> would find a better way to perform the task and would order work stopped 
> until he had finished pursuing the new line. By and large this flaw kept 
> Babbage from ever finishing anything."
> 
> OK, so how many of you are thinking "hmm, that sounds like me" right 
> now? ;-)

I believe it's the flaw of all tinkerers, including programming types... :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

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 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.

Of course, Babbage types need *some* constraints, imposed from
outside--otherwise, we'd *never* get anything done. It's a tricky trade-off.

Ken

Post a reply to this message

Kenneth wrote:

> 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 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.

It's the Microsoft philosophy: Why bother designing a superior product 
when you can just eliminate all the competing ones?

> Of course, Babbage types need *some* constraints, imposed from
> outside--otherwise, we'd *never* get anything done. It's a tricky trade-off.

Hell, Babbage successfully designed the world's first Turing-complete 
computer - but it was several hundred years late to the market. (!!)

Talk about Analysis Paralysis...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Am 12.05.2010 22:45, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
> Kenneth wrote:
>
>> 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 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.
>
> It's the Microsoft philosophy: Why bother designing a superior product
> when you can just eliminate all the competing ones?

No, it's nothing MS specific - it's just typical shareholder value 
thinking: Keep the owner satisfied /today/ and let the devil take tomorrow.

Post a reply to this message

clipka wrote:
> No, it's nothing MS specific - it's just typical shareholder value 
> thinking: Keep the owner satisfied /today/ and let the devil take tomorrow.

Actually, MS generally had a pretty good product compared to their 
competition, for the areas they were competing in. It wasn't perfect, and it 
lacked a lot of features, but it worked fairly well if you were in their 
target market, compared to anything else close to the same price. It's 
really only their competition that hated them, not their customers.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 12 May 2010 16:31:19 -0700, Darren New wrote:

>  It wasn't perfect, and
> it lacked a lot of features, but it worked fairly well if you were in
> their target market, compared to anything else close to the same price.

I have always said Microsoft was good at making products that were "good 
enough" for users.  Not outstanding, but they really found the right 
breakeven point for the users when it came to marketing/pricing their 
products and incorporating enough features that they met the needs of a 
large number of users.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 12 May 2010 16:31:19 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> >  It wasn't perfect, and
> > it lacked a lot of features, but it worked fairly well if you were in
> > their target market, compared to anything else close to the same price.

> I have always said Microsoft was good at making products that were "good 
> enough" for users.  Not outstanding, but they really found the right 
> breakeven point for the users when it came to marketing/pricing their 
> products and incorporating enough features that they met the needs of a 
> large number of users.

  One shouldn't, though, forget the marketing tactics Microsoft used, and
is still using, to enforce their products on people.

  While other software companies were content simply advertising their
products, MS often went one step ahead and actually lobbied or made
contracts with PC vendors so that their products would be included by
default in all sold PC's. I don't know how the situation is today, but
at least some time ago there were many places in the US where you simply
could not buy a PC without Windows. (You could have the vendor remove
Windows from the PC, but that would not affect the price of the PC. You
would still be paying for Windows.) And this goes all the way back to
the early days of DOS. (Many people don't remember that there was, in fact,
competition on the OS market on those days, even for the PC, and even with
DOS-compatible systems. However, MS succeeded in making DOS such an
ubiquitous product that people don't even remember that back then there
were actually alternatives, even compatible ones.)

  I find it rather obnoxious when Steve Ballmer, when questioned some time
ago about the problems with Windows Vista, referred to it as "the second
most used operating system in the world" (obviously referring to XP as
the most used one), like that was some kind of indication of its quality,
like it was some kind of indication of what people prefer. The fact is,
however, that Vista didn't get so popular by choice: It was (and may even
still sometimes be in some cases) pre-installed in the vast majority of
new PC's (both desktop and laptop), and the vast majority of consumers
had no choice than to buy it. Most of the people who buy a PC don't know
enough about computers to really have a choice: It's the computer vendor
who makes the decision of which OS they will buy, not the customer. And
ultimately, albeit indirectly, it's really Microsoft who is making the
decision of which OS customers will buy, not the customer himself.

  Being "the second most used operating system in the world" is not saying
much about *quality* when we are talking about Vista. It only tells how well
MS has succeeded in their marketing tactics.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

> It's the Microsoft philosophy: Why bother designing a superior product 
> when you can just eliminate all the competing ones?

All (successful) companies work the same way:

A = estimated costs for developing with X man hours of resources
B = estimated sales income after X man hours of development

Choose X to maximise (B-A)

It's not quite that simple, but you get the idea that after a certain point 
your profit goes *down* the bigger X is.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> It's the Microsoft philosophy: Why bother designing a superior product 
>> when you can just eliminate all the competing ones?
> 
> All (successful) companies work the same way:
> 
> A = estimated costs for developing with X man hours of resources
> B = estimated sales income after X man hours of development
> 
> Choose X to maximise (B-A)
> 
> It's not quite that simple, but you get the idea that after a certain 
> point your profit goes *down* the bigger X is.

My point being that other companies work by making a product that is 
good enough that people will want to buy it. Microsoft works by 
preventing anybody else making anything better.

Post a reply to this message

> My point being that other companies work by making a product that is good 
> enough that people will want to buy it. Microsoft works by preventing 
> anybody else making anything better.

LOL, have you seen the number of patents and lawsuits between Nokia and 
Apple, or Ford and GM, or ... and ...?  It's part of business, MS is not 
unique in trying to prevent its competitors making anything better using all 
means possible.  You'd go out of business pretty quick if you didn't 
(because your competitors are sure as hell going to use those methods on 
you).

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> My point being that other companies work by making a product that is 
>> good enough that people will want to buy it. Microsoft works by 
>> preventing anybody else making anything better.
> 
> LOL, have you seen the number of patents and lawsuits between Nokia and 
> Apple, or Ford and GM, or ... and ...?  It's part of business, MS is not 
> unique in trying to prevent its competitors making anything better using 
> all means possible.  You'd go out of business pretty quick if you didn't 
> (because your competitors are sure as hell going to use those methods on 
> you).

Last time I checked, people buy Nokia phones because they're better 
designed than the competition. That's how it's supposed to work.

Nobody buys MS because they like it. They buy MS because there's nothing 
else on offer.

Still, there's nothing that anybody can do about it, so I guess we're 
just stuck with them forever now.

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > My point being that other companies work by making a product that is good 
> > enough that people will want to buy it. Microsoft works by preventing 
> > anybody else making anything better.

> LOL, have you seen the number of patents and lawsuits between Nokia and 
> Apple, or Ford and GM, or ... and ...?  It's part of business, MS is not 
> unique in trying to prevent its competitors making anything better using all 
> means possible.

  Patent lawsuits are done to stop others from stealing your technology,
not to stop them from developing their own technology. (Of course this
doesn't mean that patent laws are never abused for this purpose.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:01:38 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   One shouldn't, though, forget the marketing tactics Microsoft used,
>   and
> is still using, to enforce their products on people.

Oh, no, absolutely - there are many things they did once customers got 
into the cycle to lock people in (something else they've done well is to 
find the right price point so people will tolerate less than perfect 
software; they may not love it, but they don't hate it enough to spend 
the money to switch).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Nobody buys MS because they like it. They buy MS because there's nothing 
> else on offer.

Right. Because neither Apple nor Linux are significant. And we all know 
there were no competing operating systems available when MS-DOS hit the scene.

The basic problem is that an OS is a natural monopoly, and it's also an 
ecosystem for the software that runs on it. Nobody buys an OS for an OS's 
sake. They buy it to run programs, and MS if nothing encourages programmers 
to write programs for non-programmers. Apple is a hardware company, and 
while they do good stuff, their economic model is more limiting due to that 
control.

Linux is free. And it's still not good enough to get people to abandon 
Microsoft's (or Apple's) stuff for desktop work. Even when the product runs 
Linux and there are thousands of Linux servers, the companies are still 
using MS and Apple on the desktop, because the Linux apps just aren't there 
yet to support business users.  And the Linux apps that *are* killer apps 
are open, so they get ported to Apple and Microsoft anyway. :-)

In the places where Microsoft competes but haven't quite hit exactly the 
right price/performance/reliability/etc ratio, there's all kinds of 
competition. What are the most popular cell phones? WinCE-based phones? Name 
two other popular gaming consoles that Microsoft doesn't make? Name some 
free email services besides Hotmail? Some desktop conferencing besides MS's?

There's definitely a network effect going on, and Microsoft definitely 
squashed a lot of competition by contracting to have their stuff on every 
machine sold for a while, but it's the network effects and the availability 
of the kind of business software that you and I don't really use that keeps 
Microsoft rolling.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On 13/05/2010 5:57 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Right. Because neither Apple nor Linux are significant. And we all know
> there were no competing operating systems available when MS-DOS hit the
> scene.

I remember PC-DOS and had a copy of GEM that ran on DR-DOS

I am a M$ user as all the companies I work for use Windows of one sort 
or another. I’m also lazy and can’t be bothered to learn something new. 
(Sorry Dr John)

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>>   One shouldn't, though, forget the marketing tactics Microsoft used,
>>   and is still using, to enforce their products on people.
> 
> Oh, no, absolutely - there are many things they did once customers got 
> into the cycle to lock people in (something else they've done well is to 
> find the right price point so people will tolerate less than perfect 
> software; they may not love it, but they don't hate it enough to spend 
> the money to switch).

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.

(Although there is hope. Give it another 5 years or so, maybe OpenOffice 
will become good...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Nobody buys MS because they like it. They buy MS because there's 
>> nothing else on offer.
> 
> Right. Because neither Apple nor Linux are significant.

If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware. Last 
time I checked, it's very pricey and available in only a handful of 
configurations, which usually can't be upgraded in any way. (Not to 
mention that there's only one possible supplier.)

> And we all know 
> there were no competing operating systems available when MS-DOS hit the 
> scene.

No, back then there *was*. Now there isn't really.

> The basic problem is that an OS is a natural monopoly, and it's also an 
> ecosystem for the software that runs on it.

Granted.

There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and 
implement an alternative office suite. (Apart perhaps from file 
compatibilty.) Yet nobody has done this. So everybody has to buy MS 
Office, because no alternative exists. That's just one example of what 
I'm talking about.

(Heck, I hear even Apple make you use MS Office!)

> There's definitely a network effect going on, and Microsoft definitely 
> squashed a lot of competition by contracting to have their stuff on 
> every machine sold for a while, but it's the network effects and the 
> availability of the kind of business software that you and I don't 
> really use that keeps Microsoft rolling.

Maybe. Personally think it has far more to do with MS's careful plan to 
remove all alternatives from the market. But anyway, we've had this 
discussion before. Nobody is going to agree with me...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:23:45 +0100, 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*. 

Corel.  OpenOffice.  There are options for many people.

> 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.
> 
> (Although there is hope. Give it another 5 years or so, maybe OpenOffice
> will become good...)

I use OpenOffice every day.  It's good.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:29:04 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.

iTunes.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> 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.

  Yeah, that's why this page only lists MS Office:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_suite

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:29:04 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.

The vast majority of computer users buy the hardware and OS in a combined  
package anyway.



> Last time I checked, it's very pricey

Debatable, and even if we assume it is true, many people seem willing to  
cough up the extra cash for what they consider a superior product.



> and available in only a handful of configurations, which usually can't  
> be upgraded in any way.

The vast majority of computer users never upgrade their computers; they  
buy new ones.



> There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and  
> implement an alternative office suite. (Apart perhaps from file  
> compatibilty.) Yet nobody has done this.

A long list of nobodies:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_suite



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

>> 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*. 
> 
> Corel.  OpenOffice.  There are options for many people.

Corel?

Don't forget StarOffice (or whatever the hell the minutely-altered 
edition of OpenOffice is called).

>> (Although there is hope. Give it another 5 years or so, maybe OpenOffice
>> will become good...)
> 
> I use OpenOffice every day.  It's good.

It's OK, and it *is* useful for fixing documents that MS Word is too 
stupid to open. But it's not nearly as effective is MS Office yet. 
Still, 5 years ago it was awful. Maybe it just needs time...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.
> 
> iTunes.

Question: Are there any people on Earth who *voluntarily* use this??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Last time I checked, if you want an office suite, you can buy MS Office 
>> or...
> 
>> ...uh, yeah, exactly.
> 
>   Yeah, that's why this page only lists MS Office:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_suite

I don't count free open-source barely-functional MS Office clones as 
"alternatives".

The suggestion was that if you're willing to pay money, you can buy an 
office suite that's better than MS Office. I've yet to see one.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:45:29 +0100, 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*.
>> 
>> Corel.  OpenOffice.  There are options for many people.
> 
> Corel?

WordPerfect Office, from Corel.

> Don't forget StarOffice (or whatever the hell the minutely-altered
> edition of OpenOffice is called).

StarOffice predated OpenOffice; the two were co-developed for some time, 
but are essentially different products now.

>>> (Although there is hope. Give it another 5 years or so, maybe
>>> OpenOffice will become good...)
>> 
>> I use OpenOffice every day.  It's good.
> 
> It's OK, and it *is* useful for fixing documents that MS Word is too
> stupid to open. But it's not nearly as effective is MS Office yet.
> Still, 5 years ago it was awful. Maybe it just needs time...

If the last time you used it was 5 years ago, then you haven't looked at 
the current versions.  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 wouldn't waste my time using *awful* software.

Oh, and I use it regularly to open MS Office docs (which I am often sent 
by third parties) - both "traditional" files and OOXML files.  No 
compatibility problems that I've encountered.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:48:24 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> Last time I checked, if you want an office suite, you can buy MS
>>> Office or...
>> 
>>> ...uh, yeah, exactly.
>> 
>>   Yeah, that's why this page only lists MS Office:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_suite
> 
> I don't count free open-source barely-functional MS Office clones as
> "alternatives".

Because, of course, Corel's WordPerfect office is "barely functional".

> The suggestion was that if you're willing to pay money, you can buy an
> office suite that's better than MS Office. I've yet to see one.

You just apparently haven't looked hard enough.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:45:58 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.
>> 
>> iTunes.
> 
> Question: Are there any people on Earth who *voluntarily* use this??

Apparently there are.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> Don't forget StarOffice (or whatever the hell the minutely-altered
>> edition of OpenOffice is called).
> 
> StarOffice predated OpenOffice; the two were co-developed for some time, 
> but are essentially different products now.

Interesting. So does StarOffice do something that OpenOffice doesn't now?

>>> I use OpenOffice every day.  It's good.
>> It's OK, and it *is* useful for fixing documents that MS Word is too
>> stupid to open. But it's not nearly as effective is MS Office yet.
>> Still, 5 years ago it was awful. Maybe it just needs time...
> 
> If the last time you used it was 5 years ago, then you haven't looked at 
> the current versions.

I said (or intended to say) that 5 years ago it was awful, and today it 
isn't. It just isn't great either.

> 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.

> Oh, and I use it regularly to open MS Office docs (which I am often sent 
> by third parties) - both "traditional" files and OOXML files.  No 
> compatibility problems that I've encountered.

As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO 
itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and 
> implement an alternative office suite. (Apart perhaps from file 
> compatibilty.) Yet nobody has done this.

  Nobody has done this? You yourself have at least heard of OpenOffice,
which is actually quite popular on the free side of the world. There are
other alternatives (many of which are more lightweight), such as KOffice,
which seems to be rather solid. From the commercial side we have some big
names like Corel WordPerfect Office (I'm pretty sure even you have at least
heard of WordPerfect), among others. On the MacOS side we have iWork, which
is Apple's own office suite, which usually means it's pretty solid (Apple
tends to invest in quality and stability).

  The problem is not that alternatives don't exist. The problem is that
MS has got itself into the lucky position of being the only known provider
of office suites to most people, and even when people get aware of
alternatives, these alternative will be always and forever be measured
against MS Office ("will it open .doc and excel files?"). Sadly, for an
office to have any chance of succeeding, it has to be able to hack support
for proprietary Microsoft file formats.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> 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.

  Why are you comparing a software which costs Big Money against a software
which is completely *free*, and demand for them to be equal in quality and
features?

  You know, some people don't *want* to waste money on an office suite when
there are free alternatives, and they may be too honest to use pirated
software.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I don't count free open-source barely-functional MS Office clones as 
> "alternatives".

  Yeah, you have tried them all and concluded that they are "barely
functional MS Office clones".

  So, say, when was the last time you used KOffice or iWorks? How was the
experience?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and 
>> implement an alternative office suite. (Apart perhaps from file 
>> compatibilty.) Yet nobody has done this.
> 
>   Nobody has done this? You yourself have at least heard of OpenOffice,
> which is actually quite popular on the free side of the world. There are
> other alternatives (many of which are more lightweight), such as KOffice,
> which seems to be rather solid. From the commercial side we have some big
> names like Corel WordPerfect Office (I'm pretty sure even you have at least
> heard of WordPerfect), among others. On the MacOS side we have iWork, which
> is Apple's own office suite, which usually means it's pretty solid (Apple
> tends to invest in quality and stability).

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.)

I thought WordPerfect died about 20 years ago?

Similarly, the one time I was actually in an Apple shop, they told me 
about all the Apple software they could potentially sell me, "buy Apple 
don't have an office suite. You'll have to use MS Office". And I'm like 
"OMG, WTF? Doesn't that defeat the entire point of the Mac existing??" 
And he was like "yeah, Apple haven't invested in making an office suite 
yet."

>   The problem is not that alternatives don't exist. The problem is that
> MS has got itself into the lucky position of being the only known provider
> of office suites to most people, and even when people get aware of
> alternatives, these alternative will be always and forever be measured
> against MS Office ("will it open .doc and excel files?"). Sadly, for an
> office to have any chance of succeeding, it has to be able to hack support
> for proprietary Microsoft file formats.

I won't argue with that. I've seen people say "hey, can I borrow the MS 
Office CD so I can put it on my home PC?" "Well, er no, that would be 
illegal copying. You'll have to *buy* a copy. Or you could use 
OpenOffice; it's completely free." "Hmm, OK. Are you _sure_ I can't just 
illegally copy MS Office? Nobody will know..."

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Last time I checked, if you want an office suite, you can buy MS Office 
> or...

Open Office, Corel, Quark, LaTeX et al, Google Docs, whatever Apple sells, 
WordPerfect, etc etc etc....  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.

> MS carefully arranges it so that users have no alternatives.

No, it's because makign a full-featured office suite that people will want 
to use is *hard* and *expensive*. Nobody *wants* to compete, because 
Microsoft already has a product. Big consumer-grade software is a natural 
monopoly.

-- 
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 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.
> > 
> > iTunes.

> Question: Are there any people on Earth who *voluntarily* use this??

  Apparently something like 50 million people do.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The suggestion was that if you're willing to pay money, you can buy an 
> office suite that's better than MS Office. I've yet to see one.

And somehow you think that's something that Microsoft is doing *wrong*?

You know they looked at something like 15 million users to figure out over 
the course of five years what the "ribbon" should look like and how it 
should be organized?  This isn't something you put together for free over 
the course of a couple years.

-- 
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 19:52:11 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Don't forget StarOffice (or whatever the hell the minutely-altered
>>> edition of OpenOffice is called).
>> 
>> StarOffice predated OpenOffice; the two were co-developed for some
>> time, but are essentially different products now.
> 
> Interesting. So does StarOffice do something that OpenOffice doesn't
> now?

Probably not; openOffice is IME more advanced.

>>>> I use OpenOffice every day.  It's good.
>>> It's OK, and it *is* useful for fixing documents that MS Word is too
>>> stupid to open. But it's not nearly as effective is MS Office yet.
>>> Still, 5 years ago it was awful. Maybe it just needs time...
>> 
>> If the last time you used it was 5 years ago, then you haven't looked
>> at the current versions.
> 
> 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).

>> 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?

If your problems with it were "it's not Microsoft Office" (ie, the 
interface was different), that's one thing.  That's about learning to use 
a new tool, not about the quality of the product.

>> Oh, and I use it regularly to open MS Office docs (which I am often
>> sent by third parties) - both "traditional" files and OOXML files.  No
>> compatibility problems that I've encountered.
> 
> 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.

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and 
> implement an alternative office suite. 

Yes, there is.  It's called "money".  And "time". And "research".

 > If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.

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. Let everyone else pay the price to build 
the hardware, while you pay only the price to design the software.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> There's no *technical* reason, however, why somebody can't go out and 
> implement an alternative office suite. 

Yes, there is.  It's called "money".  And "time". And "research".

 > If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.

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. Let everyone else pay the price to build 
the hardware, while you pay only the price to design the software.

-- 
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 15:00:19 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> >> If you want to use Apple software, you must buy Apple hardware.
>> > 
>> > iTunes.
> 
>> Question: Are there any people on Earth who *voluntarily* use this??
> 
>   Apparently something like 50 million people do.

Arguably, the usage of the software may not be voluntary, but because it 
was included with their iPods, it's what they tend to use (as the default 
application).

Myself, I can't use it, so I use gnupod instead (since iTunes doesn't run 
on Linux, and Apple likes to believe Linux doesn't exist).

Jim

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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.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

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 do a *lot* of data manipulation in my 
job, and I find that oocalc works as well as MS Excel - certainly well 
enough for the manipulations I do.  The recent expansion of the number of 
rows & columns really got rid of the last limitation I ran into (as I 
often deal with fairly large data sets).

My only complaint, in fact, about OpenOffice is that the database really 
isn't that useful - it's more of a front-end to bigger database engines 
(from MySQL to things like Oracle), but doesn't seem to work with MS 
Access databases (not that I need them that often, Jet is itself a pretty 
poor database engine, but it's handy for dealing with mid-size datasets 
where multiuser access isn't an important factor).

> I thought WordPerfect died about 20 years ago?

Um, no:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordperfect

WP Corp was bought by Novell and then sold to Corel a few years later.  
It's still in heavy use in some industries (such as being the preferred 
application of many people in the legal profession).

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> 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.
> 
>   Why are you comparing a software which costs Big Money against a software
> which is completely *free*, and demand for them to be equal in quality and
> features?

Because I've yet to see any commercial offerings to compare to.

Personally, I use OpenOffice at home. It's good enough for what I want 
to do. But it's not fantastic - much as I'd like it to be some day...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Similarly, the one time I was actually in an Apple shop, they told me 
> about all the Apple software they could potentially sell me, "buy Apple 
> don't have an office suite. You'll have to use MS Office". And I'm like 
> "OMG, WTF? Doesn't that defeat the entire point of the Mac existing??" 
> And he was like "yeah, Apple haven't invested in making an office suite 
> yet."

  When did that happen? It either happened a decade ago, or the clerk was
really incompetent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IWork (which, in fact, is
the successor to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleWorks which was first
developed in 1984).

> I won't argue with that. I've seen people say "hey, can I borrow the MS 
> Office CD so I can put it on my home PC?" "Well, er no, that would be 
> illegal copying. You'll have to *buy* a copy. Or you could use 
> OpenOffice; it's completely free." "Hmm, OK. Are you _sure_ I can't just 
> illegally copy MS Office? Nobody will know..."

  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.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> 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.

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.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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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.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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?

  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!")

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> 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.

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.

>>> 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.)

>> 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.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:13:30 +0100, Orchid XP v8 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.
> 
> 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.

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.

Jim

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