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Subject:Re: Word in 2010 From:Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 8 May 2007 12:01:15 -0700 (PDT)
My position is that too many options is as bad as too
few. I don't think it's Microsoft-specific.
This reminds me of the Linux meetings where things got
so fixated on hating Microsoft that few managed to get
in any words on how to improve Linux.
--- quills -at- airmail -dot- net wrote:
> On a whole I could do without Microsoft. If they
> weren't here, someone else would be. And thier
> software might be
> immeasurably better. Word is not a tools for large,
> complex, or structurally intense documents. It's
> just peachy-keen for writing
> letters though.
>
> Word isn't, wasn't designed to be a common
> denominator. It was designed for a specific niche
> very early in its development.
> Writing letters. Small, short documents that weren't
> layout or structure dependent.
>
> It will never be anything else without a massive
> redesign and rewritting of its code. Which will not
> happen. Also MS hasn't the
> expertise and knowledge to do software of that
> nature. Microsoft doesn't understand the need that
> we have, and isn't
> interested in our requirements.
>
> Scott
>
> On Tue May 8 8:44 , Chris Borokowski sent:
>
> >Imagine you're a contractor, journeying between
> >organizations. There are fifty-four tools out
> there.
> >You will be hired partially on the basis of what
> tool
> >you know. Now imagine the same situation where
> there
> >are four tools available. Do you see what I'm
> saying?
> >
> >I don't consider Microsoft Word to be the right
> type
> >of tool for technical writing, but I'm not
> anti-Word.
> >It does a lot of things quite well, like the whole
> >Office suite, and I'd use it immediately before
> >picking up some bug-ridden disaster like OpenOffice
> or
> >WordPerfect suite. It is not intended for
> structured
> >document authoring, in my opinion. It is a tool
> that
> >tries to capture the broadest cross-section of all
> >those who must type words into a page and save it,
> and
> >so much of its functionality is a compromise.
> >
> >I have seen overproliferation of software, and in
> the
> >end, it can be destructive, just as the
> cross-browser
> >problems in web development have become. This is
> why I
> >argued for a middle ground in this case, because
> while
> >I'm not in favor of a Microsoft-only world, I'm
> also
> >not in favor of the chaos the open source and small
> >software companies would unleash on the profession
> >without some kind of large anchoring force like
> >Redmond.
> >
> >$0.02, spend wisely ;)
> >
>
> ---- Msg sent via Internet America Webmail - http://www.internetamerica.com/
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