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Goodbye Cruel Word

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night dept.

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?'"

21 of 565 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by sethawoolley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing.

  2. Ack. by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 2, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:Ack. by wsanders · · Score: 2, Funny

      - Writer likes Scrievener and WriteRoom
      - Everybody hates Microsoft
      - Who knows, maybe writer was drunk

      --
      Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
  3. Am I the only one ... by Sepiraph · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... who misread the title as "Goodbye Cruel World". Thought it was going to be a /. suicidal note... God I NEED COFFEE!

  4. Re:Since 1.0 by Yetihehe · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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
  5. I think I speak for everyone when I say... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...dude, where's my car?

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  6. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by Yaztromo · · Score: 2, Funny

    I guess it's difficult to release a perfect Word since there are so many different types of users, yet Microsoft can't release five different versions simply for the sake of avoiding too much confusion.

    Why not? They did it with Vista.

    Yaz.

  7. Re:LyX by crush · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ha ha. Sorry about that. Weird Yellow Stuff Is Warping Your Mind.

  8. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by Fred_A · · Score: 4, Funny

    Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing. See ? I'm not the only one who doesn't like ed !
    --

    May contain traces of nut.
    Made from the freshest electrons.
  9. What about... by KCStein · · Score: 2, Funny

    vi?

    --
    Sharper than the edge of Ockham's Razor.
  10. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by sethawoolley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing. See ? I'm not the only one who doesn't like ed ! But I use sed only because the installed base is much higher compared to ed and document portability is critical in my line of work.

  11. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I agree 100% but please use LaTeX next time you post here.

  12. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by joss · · Score: 2, Funny

    > 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/
  13. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Funny

    You think you've got problems.. I sign half my letters with :wq!

  14. Re:A simple solution... by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 5, Funny

    > (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.

  15. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by T-Bone-T · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does your boss have pointy hair?

  16. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by kramulous · · Score: 2, Funny

    I sign my /. posts with q! ["That comment missed the point and is generally unhelpful, forget it" self moderation]

    --
    .
  17. Re:The best tools stay out of the way...LARGE BUST by digitig · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wouldn't work here. The missus knows that I prefer small.

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  18. Blech by Orp · · Score: 2, Funny

    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?
  19. Re:The best tools are free. by digitig · · Score: 2, Funny

    The same could be said for the GIMP, Blender and Gnome/KDE interfaces. Good thing slashdot is as hard on open source giffaws like that as their closed-source counterparts. I've not used the GIMP or Blender, and I've never wanted to change the KDE interface, so contrary to /. spirit I'll any leave criticism of those to people who know what they're talking about.
    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  20. Re:The best tools stay out of the way... by peterpi · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.