I've seen multiple links to Joel's advice. It's bad advice. He is talking out of his ass.
Do not under any circumstances run a server that automates Microsoft Office unless you can afford to pay an intern or maybe a homeless person to babysit the server 24/7. They will have to close dialog boxes when it gets stuck waiting for user input and reboot the server ocassionally because of memory leaks. Anyone that has tried to do anything with the file formats has gone this route and given up.
There is a very robust and competitive market for third-party developer components that read and write Office file formats for most popular development platforms. This is the way to go. or use Apache POI if you can put up with the missing features.
So sick of hearing about how Microsoft is dying or irrelevant. It's like your buddy's ex-girlfriend he just won't stfu about because she dumped him. It makes him feel good to put her down.
If I was the moderator who posted that story on/. after MSFT posted and 81% increase in profits, I would be ashamed. Great they're dying but they're making fucking billions still and it's still growing! So please stfu! It's wishful thinking by anti-Microsoft jihadists.
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I've seen multiple links to Joel's advice. It's bad advice. He is talking out of his ass.
Do not under any circumstances run a server that automates Microsoft Office unless you can afford to pay an intern or maybe a homeless person to babysit the server 24/7. They will have to close dialog boxes when it gets stuck waiting for user input and reboot the server ocassionally because of memory leaks. Anyone that has tried to do anything with the file formats has gone this route and given up.
There is a very robust and competitive market for third-party developer components that read and write Office file formats for most popular development platforms. This is the way to go. or use Apache POI if you can put up with the missing features.
So sick of hearing about how Microsoft is dying or irrelevant. It's like your buddy's ex-girlfriend he just won't stfu about because she dumped him. It makes him feel good to put her down. If I was the moderator who posted that story on /. after MSFT posted and 81% increase in profits, I would be ashamed. Great they're dying but they're making fucking billions still and it's still growing! So please stfu! It's wishful thinking by anti-Microsoft jihadists.