Another Office Alternative

I'm underwhelmed by RatOmeter · 2002-04-07 01:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

"Less than glowing" review is right. To paraphrase the reviewer, it's buggy and slow.

My experience with Java, the language this app was written in, is limited to a little experimentation, web-based javascripts and using Limewire (the Gnutella client). Limewire is also an app that I would describe as buggy and slow, with emphasis on slow.

Does anyone else have an opinion on the suitability of Java in medium (Limewire) to large (thinkFree's product) desktop applications?

Re:I'm underwhelmed by phaze3000 · 2002-04-07 01:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

Javascript really has very little to do with Java, other than the first four letters and a small amount of syntax.
Java really needn't be slow, especially if using 1.2 or above. As for buggy, a program can have bugs whatever langauge it's written in, but the nature of Java maks them less likely than say, C.

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Re:I'm underwhelmed by Bilbo · 2002-04-07 02:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

I've used some really big applications (as in, 400Meg memory footprint), and while it is slow on old hardware, it performs reasonably well. Just make sure you have lots of RAM, and a moderately fast CPU.
Really, the question is not so much the language (Java), as it is the people writing the application. You can write dog slow applications in any language. Java can be fast, but it takes time and effort, and some good tools to help you fine bottlenecks. (Think: "OptimizeIt")

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Re:I'm underwhelmed by jeffy124 · 2002-04-07 02:09 · Score: 3, Informative

the reason swing is slow is because it has maintain prtability between windowing systems (GNOME vs KDE, for example) and OSs (like Windows vs Solaris). As a result, the code becomes a little bloated in getting everybody supported equally.

AWT, the original gui package, ran ok for the runtime environment it had, but was very feature limited, as they only implemented something everybody had.

Swing, OTOH, implementes every gui widget you can think of, and uses the Java 2D graphics package instead of the native windowing system (although that too has changed). When I said earlier that Swing was improved in 1.4, it was actually this 2D package that was improved.

Chances are high that the ThinkFree suite was implemented for Java 1.3 since 1.4 was just released within the past month or two.

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Re:I'm underwhelmed by Anonymous Coward · 2002-04-07 02:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

I have to concur with another poster - there's nothing inherently slow about Java. When you drill down to the runtime environment, each component is almost as fast as c++... The problem is that Java makes it really easy to write slow code - and pretty Java is usually slow java.

The trick is to keep in mind that 10% of the code is executed 90% of the time, so once you're done writing a Java app to be pretty, go back and performance tune it. Thus far, most programmers forget that step.
Re:I'm underwhelmed by Bodrius · 2002-04-07 02:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

As a lot of people have to repeat every once in a while: Java != Javascript. Java has nothing to do with Javascript, actually (nothing more than with, say, CShell). The name of the latter was a marketing gimmick.

That said, Java earned a bad reputation from being used in Applets all over the Net, which are victims of every defect Java has (or at least used to have until very, very recently).

One of those defects is that Swing really, really sucks. Now, it's design may be great or not, and it may be full of design patterns or not, but it has been, up to 1.3, very "buggy and slow". You can cope with the buginess if you need to, but it will make it even slower.

AWT too, but at least AWT didn't claim it had fixed the problem when it did not.

Another defect, which is not exactly Java's, is that Applets on the web were mostly programming experiments by novices in both the language and programming. Java was hip, and everyone who had a webpage had to have an Applet. They were bound to be buggy. And the circumstances didn't help.

The world was exposed to millions of "Hello World" desktop applications brought online by Sun's Magnificent Hype Machine, programmed in a cranky and immature GUI library (AWT/early-Swing), with incompatible JVMs (Microsoft's), slowly downloaded to the client's machine through a 28.8K-56K modem... all increasing the amount of frustration when the "ClassNotFound" exception presents the user with a dazzling gray square.

Java is a nice language, but for desktop applications it's just not a great choice, unless 1.4 delivered the promise (I have yet to try it for desktop apps). But that promise was there with 1.3, and even with the birth of Swing.

I'm sure it is technically possible to use it for medium-big applications, there are plenty (big) IDEs written in Java that are very, very usable. I also hear very good comments about some non-Sun libraries, but I'm afraid no one really cares.

Java for the desktop is seen as the wrong solution to the problem, and will remain so for a long time even if they fix it, thanks to Sun's mistake. Java's place as the right solution seems to be on the server, where it's definitely not buggy nor terribly slow, with the desktop as a thin client (SOAP, JSP) implemented in something else.

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Re:I'm underwhelmed by jdh28 · 2002-04-07 03:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

One feature I really admire, is the portability of code... Sun has done a great job of keeping that feature in line.

They obviously haven't done a good enough job for ThinkFree, since they're having to maintain separate Windows, Linux and Mac versions of the Office Suite.
john
Re:I'm underwhelmed by Frums · 2002-04-07 04:01 · Score: 3

Java for the desktop has been "proven" wrong in shrink wrap software, but for custom work it is actually a huge success.

Amongst other large companies, my (unnamed, large telecommunications/gis company) makes customized solutions for most of the biggest players in classic telephony, and scads of minor clec's, utility companies, etc. Our UI is all Java (some of the mid tier stuff is C, but the UI is straight Java). It works, it works quickly and well

The Reason that the Java UI in most program has problems is not so much a problem of Swing, but of people not reading the first thing (or paying attention if they did) about Java. Swing is written to have a seperate UI thread. Most people ignore this. They open a menu, and the menu is generated, actrions for the items in it are created, and then it is drawn. Then they select something and the UI hangs for a moment while the UI thread has to execute the action.

Watch the user interface closely in most well built applications and you will see the UI responds to an event faster than the event occurs because it is allowed its own thread. On a quick machine they seem simultaneous, but they are not. This become most pronounced in games, since games tend to push the performance envelope the farthest. Issue a command, and it will happen, eventually, but you are not stuck in a "command queued" type mode that is the effective thing that most poor UI designs (application not pretty pictures) with Swing do to the user. Good games provide audible feadback that the command was issued (to avoid the user issueing it 8 more times wondering why it doesna work) creating the illusion of snappier UI. It is a good illusion too.

Large applications do this too. Watch MS Office carefully sometime ;-)

Swing has its defects. Capturing global key events is a terrible kludge; the "Windows Look and Feel" is hideous; efficient programming requires a seperate UI thread (though this is true in most any large desktop app, is just more pronounce din java); its use of AWT classes fairly liberally makes it feel krufty; it (this is really Java, not Swing) has too damn many forced-catch exceptions (let the bloody things bubble up and have valid state info!) but its greatest flaw is being very easy to develop in poorly. Sort oflike the applet problem mentioned earlier. Coding Swing UI's is far easier than Qt, MFC (shudder), ATL, etc in the Windoze environment (and to be honest, outside of Qt I have never used any *nix ui libraries, so dunno bout them, but point-of-fact *nixes they are 99% irrelevent if the application has a UI).

Alternatives by Anonymous Coward · 2002-04-07 01:47 · Score: 3, Informative

There are a list of alternatives at fuckmicrosoft.com

Too bad MS Office really IS the best. by Anonymous Coward · 2002-04-07 01:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

The worst part about all these MS Office competitors is that none of them are as good as MS Office. I use Linux exclusively (and have since around 1997) but I'd have to say without a doubt that the application I miss most has got to be Microsoft Word.

I know the slashdot sentiment is to hate on all things Microsoft, but it's easy to use and does damn near everything you'd want it to. Star Office and the rest just really aren't as nice.

I guess Linux isn't as polished, either, but when I'm developing, I prefer Linux to Windows by far. But when I'm writing, I prefer Word to anything else. Oh well.

Alternatives are not necessarily options by xiaix · 2002-04-07 01:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have evaluated every office suite that I have come across that provides an 'alternative' to office. So far the only one that has come close has been StarOffice 6. It seems there is always one vital feature lacking that keeps me from going to management with a proposal to standardize on (insert alternative here).

Either the max. spreadsheet is abysmally small (8k-16k rows), or there is no cross-tab reporting functionality, etc.. There is always something

I know that playing catch-up with Microsoft is a losing battle, but some features are essential. If it is available in Lotus, WordPerfect, and MS Office, you can be pretty sure there will be people who can not work without it.

I'd love to switch to a Microsoft free shop, but until I can go to management with solutions to every problem, and assurances that no functionality will be lost, I can't. Office suites are only one battle in the war, but it is one I should be able to win...

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"one year subscription to cyberdrive" by 3-State+Bit · 2002-04-07 01:55 · Score: 5, Funny

anyone know why people would normally pay cyberdrive for 20 megs of web storage, when yahoo gives you 30 megs for free?

Oh, and
Point 1: "Connect to Briefcase from your Windows desktop with the Yahoo! Drive Client. Drag and drop or save files directly to Briefcase from any application." (same page).

Point 2: on Linux you'd get the same functionality without running a foreign exe to modify your OS [!], but rather by mounting a ten-line Perl script of your own design, to proxy the http connection as though it were your web browser.

Point 3: This, incidentally, is why people use Windows.

Thinkfree? Name Change Proposal by ReadParse · 2002-04-07 01:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Maybe they ought to call themselves "ThinkFiftyDollars"... their name kind of suggests that it's free!

RP

File formats are more important by cheekymonkey_68 · 2002-04-07 01:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

I wish that the industry would get together an agree a usable file format that would be supported by all document processors even if they just settled on some SGML based format such as Xml.

Hmm imagine if every word processor used Xml for storage...that would be miles better than having every business use Word.

Look at WordPerfect, look at Lotus Word,they were both excellent word processors and the market leaders and look where it got them...

Microsoft eroded there market share using its by now commonly known tactics.

The problem is, right now we have Word and Pdf as being the only file formats of choice that are universally accepted.

Pdf is ok, but again the file format itself is proprietary

Word is especially bad not so much for its bloat, but for the bugs that never get fixed and worse of all Microsofts habit of changing the format frequently

Re:File formats are more important by Evro · 2002-04-07 02:10 · Score: 4, Informative

Pdf is ok, but again the file format itself is proprietary

PDF is not proprietary; it is an open standard. The problem with PDF is that it is not editable, so is not very useful for sending back and forth for editing purposes.

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Re:File formats are more important by pubjames · 2002-04-07 04:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

I couldn't agree more. I've thought this for a while and still don't understand why such an obvious thing hasn't happened.

There are lots of office suites now available, both open source and proprietry. Some are very good. But everyone bitches that they can't shift Microsoft from its monopoly position. If they all got together and agreed to use a single format (Suns XML format for StarOffice/OpenOffice is a very good start) then we would quickly have hundreds of useful tools for manipulating document formats, and rather than chasing Microsoft's tail-lights, we would be setting the agenda and Microsoft might have to start following us or start to loose serious market share.

I believe this issue is the single most important one for getting Linux onto the desktop. So, all you people who develop office suites - get together and agree on a single XML format which you'll all use! It will do you all good in the long term.

Journalists!! by Tim+Ward · 2002-04-07 02:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

That doesn't sound like a huge gap until you notice that -- oops -- the 1.7 version of ThinkFree Write has no word-count function.

I learnt many years ago that if you want a decent review of your word processor you MUST include a word count function.

Sure, the word count function is, for 99% of users, just bloat that they are never going to use, but reviewers get paid by the word for writing their reviews, and naturally try to write their reviews using the word processor under review, so if you don't include a word count function the entire review consists of a whine about the missing word count function.

(The same reviewer, oddly, seems to think that a missing spelling checker is no big deal. That's fair enough if s/he is a properly trained professional journalist and never uses words s/he can't spell and never makes typing mistakes, but for the other 99% of us ...)

Re:Thinkfree? Name Change Proposal by danielrose · 2002-04-07 02:07 · Score: 3, Funny

No. No. No.
Their name simply means that everyone who uses the software, thinks it SHOULD be free.

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Cheap at twice the price by dgroskind · 2002-04-07 02:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

The article lists some basic MS Office features and says: It's a waste to use $480 worth of Office suite for such simple work.

It depends on how important the work is. A PowerPoint sales presentation may be worth thousands of dollars in sales, an Excel spreadsheet could manage a large budget, a Word document could be a report on an important project or a book manuscript. Any one of these examples would be worth more than $480 by itself. In fact, the time spent creating the document would exceed $480 many times over.

If what you do with an office suite isn't worth $480, maybe you should do something else that is.

Just do a compatible word processor by Animats · 2002-04-07 04:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

More than any other single thing, Microsoft's monopoly relies on everyone else's inability to properly read Word files. That's the one big problem that has to be cracked.

An agreed-upon public replacement for Word files would help, too. Probably something that's zipped XML. Then push to make it a formal standard, get government agencies to mandate it, and put a display engine for it in browsers.

Columnist replies... by robp · 2002-04-07 07:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Thanks for the comments on my review (although I really didn't expect it to draw a mention here, as opposed to my piece on the CBDTPA a week ago).

To answer a couple of points people have raised:

* Spell-checking: ThinkFree Office has a spell checker, but it doesn't flag misspellings as you type them, Word-style. You have to invoke the spell-checker "by hand." (My editor was afraid my description here might not have been clear enough. Guess he was right :)

* Importance of word count: Guilty as charged! I write for a living and I *need* this feature to do my job. Since a word count isn't exactly a difficult feature to support (as opposed to, say, revision tracking), I don't think it's out of line to expect it.

* Other Office alternatives: I left out AbiWord because it is a) just a word processor, not a full suite, and b) it's OS X compatibility is only available if you install an X11 server, which is a lot of work to ask of a home user (the target reader for my column).

I am planning on a review StarOffice whenever 6.0 ships, most likely as part of a comparison with OpenOffice.

Any other questions, y'all know where to reach me...

- R

HELOOOO!!! Have any of you used this app? by swagr · 2002-04-07 15:45 · Score: 4, Informative

Well, there are several of premature remarks here. "Java is slow", "it's not free", "it's not Office/StarOffice/KOffice", etc...

Just to let you all know. I actually tried it.
I used it to whip up an updated version of my resume, and saved in in rtf, doc, and html. I then proceeded to open the doc and rtf in Word, and the html in various browsers, only to find they all looked exactly as expected.

I thought that was rather nice.

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