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Goodbye Cruel Word
theodp writes "The problem with Microsoft Word, writes the NYT's Virginia Heffernan, is that 'I always feel as if I'm taking an essay test.' Seeking to break free of the tyranny of Microsoft Word, Heffernan takes a look at Scrivener and the oh-so-retro WriteRoom, which she and others feel jibe better with the way writers think. 'The new writing programs encourage a writerly restart. You may even relearn the green-lighted alphabet, adjust your preference for long or short sentences, opt afresh for action over description. Renewal becomes heady: in WriteRoom's gloom is man's power to create something from nothing, to wrest form from formlessness. Let's just say it: It's biblical. And come on, ye writers, do you want to be a little Word drip writing 603 words in Palatino with regulation margins? Or do you want to be a Creator?'"
Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing.
I can't watch "Juno" and read that article in the same day. My brain is really tired of text and dialogue as dense as a ten-year-old Christmas fruitcake.
Can anyone here translate into "concise" for me?
... who misread the title as "Goodbye Cruel World". Thought it was going to be a /. suicidal note... God I NEED COFFEE!
"It looks like you are being creative. Would you like to read slashdot instead?" And creative trance goes to hell...
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
...dude, where's my car?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Why not? They did it with Vista.
Yaz.
Ha ha. Sorry about that. Weird Yellow Stuff Is Warping Your Mind.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
vi?
Sharper than the edge of Ockham's Razor.
I agree 100% but please use LaTeX next time you post here.
> Come to think of it, the TeX/Emacs vs Word and Unix vs Windows differences are very much like the difference between C/C++ and Lisp/Scheme.
You bastard, I tried to parse that repeatedly. What are you comparing to what ?
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
You think you've got problems.. I sign half my letters with :wq!
> (And do NOT say "WINE" or I will laugh because that software is largely a bad joke.
You've got it backwards. MS Windows is the bad joke; Wine is more like nicorette, it wanes your addiction to said bad joke.
Does your boss have pointy hair?
I sign my /. posts with q! ["That comment missed the point and is generally unhelpful, forget it" self moderation]
.
Wouldn't work here. The missus knows that I prefer small.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
No... that is a FOSSie outlook. Lunix is a server. Lunix is a desktop. Lunix is a laptop. Lunix is for grandma, and for junior, and for professor. Lunix is both a floor wax AND a desert topping!
On the other hand, MS has always been focussed on one single area: enterprise users. MS Office is written to be used by companies with thousands of users, and to create documents which have thousands of pages. MS does not care so much about little Johnny writing his book report. MS does not care so much about mommy writing out her grocery list. MS does not care so much about you writing an MS-hating article for your school newspaper.
Yes, MS does put work into making sure Word can do those simpler tasks, which is why they keep creating Wizards to assist in auto-creating documents. But the application and tools themselves are focused on helping people who know how the program works, and understand how to get it to do what they want. It's not made for neubs, which is why knowing MS Office is actually a job skill.
If you want something simple or approachable, try MS Works, or Open Office, or all the other third-tier document applications. Once you are ready to step up into a professional-level application, MS Office will be waiting for you.
If the summary was written using the features of this software, I want nothing to do with it.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
What an unfortunate signature to have. I highly recommend staying away from vi. Perhaps MS Word would suit you well.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I've lost so many emails / msn conversations / etc by pressing Esc twice. The ones that remain are littered with "jkjkjkjkjk" when I can't see where the cursor is.