Re:Implications for Phonics vs. Whole-word Debate?
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 1
Just because she can't hear doesn't mean she can't make the sounds. Without the sounds there is no speaking regardless of whether or not you can hear it. The sounds she speaks are the sounds of the letters together forming a word.
It's a well known fact that deaf people can feel sounds. Also, a blind person can see with their ears. Your arguments have no supporting data nor facts to support any idea that speaking and reading are unrealted to sound, so if they are related to sound, then phonics is the basis of reading, again, regardless if the person can hear it.
The funny thing is that sound is just vibrations anyways, so the only difference between your friend's perseption of sound through bones and skin and her teeth, she just isn't using ear drums to translate the vibrations into a message to the brain.
despite your extended rants you completely fail to understand that Word is working according to design.
yes it is, poorly...;)
It reformats pages based on the user's printer.
This is a good thing?
Period.
Maybe I am dense, but is this a complete sentence?
If you don't like it, don't use it.
This is the best advice you can give me?
If you have a specific bug, put up or shut up.
ugh, I can't possibly be expected to read your mind, will you please slow down and explain yourself a little more clearly?
As it stands your complaints are as sensible as complaining that the Linux kernel implements POSIX rather than the NT Kernel API.
No, my arugment actually makes sense.
It's a fundemental part of the software.
What? The crashing part or the screwing up files part?
Your comparisons to HTML are so off base to be just plain stupid.
I don't know, I think they look fairly similar... here, what do you think?
HTML
<html><head><title>Untitled</title></head><body
bgcolor=#FFFFFF>Hello</body></html>
RTF
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0 {\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss Arial;}}{\colortbl\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\ blue224;\red224\green0\blue0;\red224\green0
\blue224;}{\stylesheet{\s0\fs24 Normal Text;}}\pard \f0\fs24 Hello\par}
HTML doesn't even make an attempt to specify printing!
Perhaps, but does CSS or XML? Think about it...
Not to mention that you're bitching about IE's backcompat when other browsers (ahhm, Mozilla) are far worse.
Plug your ears for this one, open standards NOT MS Standards...
Stop grasping your genitals...
Dr. Freud, please translate this person's facinations...
...and venting at your hate at MS...
Hate? ppphhbt! I don't hate MS, I am merely agonized nightly by them...and I
am merely sharing my frustrations with my fellow nerd, who understands my pain....
Is this somehow wrong?
...and do something about it...
I just did!;)
...by using the right tools for the job.
See that's the problem, do you know how many programs do what Word does? Do you know how many of them are faster, easier to use, install faster and easier, can be uninstalled, don't require registration to continue to run, are cheaper, crash less, don't annoy you, have consistent menus, DON't spew viruses like a whale, don't have annoying paperclips, don't lie about the paperclip going away as a "feature"... (shall I go on?)
It's only takes me a moment to reply, how long does it take you to track down every post considering your aren't getting notified of a reply?
Being played for a fool implies I am missing out on something and it's a big joke or I am being scammed, so far I don't see your point, if you have none, that's fine, no skin off my teeth. Just post under a name so it doesn't look like you are afraid for people to know who you are...
Sure, IE interprets a lot of the HTML standards wrong, but I don't see how this shows that Word is broken.
The reason they are similar is because HTML, like the word format, has had things slapped onto it (dhtml, plugins, objects, etc...) that weren't part of the original design.
Here's the issue. If I make a document in html 1, and MS makes IE show html 1 docs just fine, but then in an upgrade IE and then the same html 1 files no longer show up right.
Both IE and Word do this to a degree (IE is far worse IMO). They both screw up things they had straight in previous versions, more specificly Word's issues I've found are with sharing files, no real issues on one computer in this regard (other problems though). What's stunning about this is that Word _makes_ it's own files and MS has 100% control over the structure of both the files and the code base in Word to read the files, yet there still is problems with basic display issues.
Look at Macromedia flash, it's backwards compatible to version 1 (future splash) in both the authoring environment all the way through all the run time players. The flash format is a complete mess, cobbled together a piece at a time. (a hard core hacker pointed this out to me when we were making a player for flash files)
What about photoshop files? Freehand or Illustrator? These kinds of documents are far more complex than a simple word document. Macromedia Director files even more so (I can have RTF/HTML docs inside of Director), yet I have never run into version issues with these formats and have been upgrading for some time, and still have files from college that still open in the latest versions. (Director has a limitation of version 5 for the latest compatibility though...)
Call me picky but when I pay as much money for office as I do my other high end software I should be able to expect at _least_ similar quality. I won't bother explaining all the other downfalls of office software, as that's not my main point, but is certainly relevant.
Your point is well taken about the original purpose of word and it's origins perhaps cause this problem. But even Macromedia rewrote it's entire Director engine from scratch at version 8, how hard could it be for MS to do this? ugh, I am going around in circles here, MS makes crap and won't bother fixing it until it hit's their pocketbook, feel free to prove me wrong, but I am sick of the headaches..
Web pages are a bad analogy. HTML was designed to vary with client capabilities.
They were designed to "vary" perhaps, maybe a better term would be "flexible". But there are still "standards" and if the browser follows them *cough* mozilla *cough* then the pages come out in expected and consistent way, unlike other "WYSIWYG" HTML viewers... *cough* IE *cough*
So is it the fault of RTF, HTML, etc... when a document viewed on differnt computers shows up inaccurately? Or is it the fault of the viewing application itself? (assuming standards are adhered to of course)
You are obviously a moron if you can't get such a simple thing to work.
To All Anonymous Cowards This is getting old, try researching a little, this is a real problem. _Obviously_ you have the same printer (or no printer) installed on your computers. If not, then the drivers displays don't have issues with eachother.
Unless everyone in the world has the same printer I can't see how both goals are not contradictory.
Because some files I never plan on printing, have nothing to do with paper and should not be forced to be related to a printer.
If I believed that every word processor in the world did this and it _had_ to do it this way, I wouldn't even bother with a comment. But since _none_ of the other formats or software I've ever used (within my knowledge) base their layout on the printer drivers, then I can only assume this is poorly designed software.
Feel free to prove otherwise, I am certainly not a blind MS basher...
Hard not too be, I just had a bad crash with win2k after upgrading to Service Pack 4, and the thought of having to reinstall Office yet again (ugh) has pushed me to using Open Office.
Also, I lost tons of sensitive data because I used Microsoft's default encryption for my data files and when I reinstalled win2k, I could no longer access my files because Win2k thought I was a different user. After hours of searching online for how to solve this and get my information from my own computer I have gone slightly mad. (and I still can't get my data)
So use an earlier version of Office supporting XML and save it to a different format.
The last thing I want to have todo is reinstall windows on my machine so I can install an older version of office (as you can't downgrade it or uninstall it fully) just to manage my data....
If it were only paranoia and not real world agony I would be relieved...
Word is not a page layout program. It's a wYsiwYg word processor.
Word _acts_ like a layout program only very poorly. Sure it is a WYSIWYG but I don't see how this definition has anything to do with it's behaviour, the point of WYSIWYG is that what I see on the screen is what I print, but it also means that what I see is what other people will see as well, and if they don't see the same thing, then something is broken, as in webpages not looking right on different browsers due to not sticking with globally recognized html standards. *hint* IE.
designing software that reformats documents when you change the printer is harder than not doing so.
Then if high quality layout programs (quark for example) or low quality programs don't do this, and it's actually more work to code, and it produces more inconsistent printing, why does MS code Word this way?
Considering that the reference implementation of RTF is Microsoft Word, I doubt it.
I don't use Word for reading or editing RTF files. Outside of that, I really don't know what you are saying...
Why do you expect "Office XML" to be held to a higher standard?
I don't particularily think that they need "a higher standard" I think they need an "open standard". If I am wrong, and their standard is fine with people who are more in the know than I am, great.
But since I don't trust Microsoft, I won't be investing any more money in Office just because my concerns over formats have been cured by their implementation of XML.
All of these changes has caused some information loss.
I suppose, but at least I know those formats won't be changed in the future with the itention of product lock-in. Also, from what I have read, some Office documents contain personally identifying information about the creator of the document, I haven't taken the time to look into it though.
Word queries the printer driver to determine layout within the printer's parameters.
That's interesting, does anyone think it's good software design to have a completely external and seperate entity (printer driver) determine how things should be displayed? What if neither one of us had a printer installed? What if I change my printer in the future? I will then lose my formatting? This some how sounds insane...
I personally think that MS should have enough foresite to see this as an issue and make some kind of abstraction layer between file data and printer drivers.
I've never seen a PDF, TXT, or RTF file get screwed up because of these reasons...
What is the point of XML in your opinion anyways ?
Who is saying MS is/will forever use only XML in their formats? I think it's naive of us to think just because they use XML that it will be compatible and remain compatible with other office like products.
This is a trust issue. The last thing I want to find out is that after 3 upgrades to office, I can no longer open any of my archived documents, or that I have to upgrade again to maintain my documents. Also, I don't want to have to upgrade Office just because my clients have a newer version so I can't read their files.
This is what concerns me is that my data is in a format that is in constant limbo without long term gurantees of the integrity of the applications (or it's formats) that create and update my data.
Considering that within 1 upgrade cycle I have lost information, what will happen within 2 or 3? Sure you can keep older copies of office, but what if you no longer can run them because the OS they are on is obsolete you upgraded that as well? You also can't have more than one version of Office on one machine at the same time, etc...
This is a real problem, not an imaginary one that is based on opinions about XML. XML is a markup language, my opinion about how to use it is actually irrelevant.
I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.
This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.
This is _not_ a user error, it's simple lack of proper backwards compatibility.
I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.
This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.
Calling someone a moron without knowing the facts is obviously the only reason for posting as an Anonymous Coward.
I didn't mention anything about a "standard", I said "compatible".
If you call OpenOffice XML format - standard,
No, I didn't.
then Microsoft Office XML is standard is well. It is just a different standard.
Most things MS creates use different standards, that is the problem. Microsoft's own Office programs can't even open their own files without it getting messed up, what is the point in trusting any new document designs they come up with?
Disclaimer: I work on the XML team at Microsoft but not directly with Microsoft Office.
Because one developer says that MS is using XML standards correctly, does this mean that MS will actually keep it's formats open and backwards compatible?
Keep in mind it's the MS developement team that have created the file format mess in the past that is so horrid that entire countries are moving away from your closed formats. I can't even send an word 2000 doc to my father in-law who has OfficeXP with out it getting screwed up.
Even if what you say is 100% accurate, and MS delivers a compatible format that works with say, OpenOffice and Start Office, you have absoultely _NO_ gurantees that MS will not change the file format on the next upgrade and at that point turn the data to a completely proprietary form that is accessible only to the next upgrade of office.
Very few people in their right minds will trust MS anymore, and for good reasons.
Re:Implications for Phonics vs. Whole-word Debate?
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 1
You may be able to do all you say you can with regards to reading, but _only_ because you can already read at a compitent level. A child just learning to read can do none of the things you described.
A good example is programming. If you are a programmer you will remember a time when you looked at code and it didn't make any sense at all. Then after learning to decode the meaning of the code (no pun intended) you were able to understand the meaning of it, reguardless of any sounds related to the words of the code.
Anyways, the only issue I really see with all this is that in the whole language world adults assume because something is easy for them and makes sense that that is the way they should teach kids, which is a really bad way to teach.
In regards to your experience with reading, I feel the same way, reading is frequently an effortless task to which sometimes I am able to simply obsorb (sp?) words. I just wish I could speed read.:)
Re:Implications for Phonics vs. Whole-word Debate?
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Don't the number of exceptions to the phonics generalizations hamper it greatly as a tool?
I am no reading expert but a good friend of mine is. From what I gathered from him is that the actual act of "decoding" a written word into a spoken word is the very first step in reading.
If you don't know what the sound the letter "P" makes you can never ever read the letter. So the basics of reading _is_ phonics. Phonics is not some kind of "method" of teaching how to read, it is a process that every single person reading this text right now has to go through in order to decode the imagery into a sound.
Then once the person get's good enough at it they no longer have to focus concious attention to the decoding process as it becomes automatic.
But even I as a very skilled reader when I run into a very new, large or complex word I _have_ to sound it out, or attempt to, because that is the only way a human being can read.
Decoding visual symbols to auditory symbols = phonics.
Then after the steps of decoding comes comprehension, which is totally seperate from decoding. (I am sure I have the order of events wrong here...) A child can sound out the sentence-
"Frank went to the market to buy a german shepard"
-but they still need to understand what they decoded. Whole language is a guessing game based on assumptions and values that are not concretely 100% based on a system of the intetional ordering of the letters in relation to their auditory equivilants.
As adults we can use whole language easily in the sense that we can guess words based on previous knowledge of the word (written and spoken) but not so for a small child that has never decoded any words.
As an example my daughter likes to guess words because that is how they started in Kindegarten, with sight words ( a huge mistake ). So she started with the habit of merely memorizing shapes of words without even considering the auditory values of the letters of those words.
After teaching my daughter some very basic decoding skills based on help from my friend, my daughter learned to read words she's never seen before. She read the word "giraffe" all by herself using her new found decoding skills. I gurantee you that no skills of the "whole language" idealogy would come close to providing this kind of reading ability in a 6 year old kid.
Can you explain in detail, step by step how you know how to read the word "giraffe"? In whole language you don't have steps to parse the sounds out and recombine them.
Here's the logic.
1. "g" sounds like G as in "Great"
2. "ir" sounds like "er" as in "Her"
3. "a" sounds like "a" in "hat"
4. "ff" sounds like "f" in "fast"
5. "e" sounds like "e" in "see"
Then the child comes initially with the word
"geraffy" when it should be "jeraf"
The child at age 6 knows many thousands of words, and does not recognize "geraffy" so...
1. Child recognizes the silent "e"
2. Over compensates and makes the "a" sound like "a" in "bay"
3. "g" can sound like "j"
4. Now has word "jerayf"
5. Reverts the "ay" to "a", considers it a mistake, and gets-
6. "jeraf" which is the correct sound, at which time the child jumps up and down with glee.
But even easier is reading the word in a sentence.
"I saw a giraffe at the zoo today"
As competent readers we automatically do all the calculations that this child does when we find a new word. After a number of times reading a word, the decoding is either automatic and extermely fast or as I like to view it in my own mind, there is a pre-rendered cached version of the word "giraffe" sitting in my mind, so when I see the word in it's whole, I know it's meaning without having to completely parse the word a single block at a time (by letter) but by the whole word itself.
Some of this is my opinion and the rest is raw fatual data.
I think they should focus on solving identity theft in ways that if someone's info is already available
98% or more of all the spam I get is from the email address I have stored in WHOIS. WHOIS is a nasty spam database with guranteed users at the end of each email...
Regardless of the 200 other places you can find my contact information online, there is no doubt what-so-ever that WHOIS's current system is a disaster that needs to be fixed.
You seem to have studied scripture quite abit and are able to find scriptures easily to support your views, which leads me to believe that you hold your religion with high regard.
In your other posts you also show a desire for the truth, of which we both share a desire for the truth. I have noted in this particular post things that may be of intrest to you regarding the truth.
God is actually a Trinity, and neither the Muslims nor the Jews acknowledge this.
The Bible is very clear that there is only 2 beings of the God family, God the Father and God the Son (Jesus), not three. There are many scriptures that explain this even starting in Genesis, yet there is no scripture to show God is a trinity in any way.
God calls everyone to become members of His Church
Jesus said "many are called" _not_ "everyone".
Matthew 22:14
"For many are called, but few are chosen."
His Church, the Catholic Church.
God's Church is recognized by the name of Jesus Christ and God, not the Catholic name. Refer to these scriptures, which all call the Church by it's true name.
...then you can be saved despite not formally being a Catholic,
Since the meaning of the word "Catholic" in Greek is "universal", by your statement you are saying that to be saved you must be universal, which doesn't make sense. So then if you are saying you have to be of a certain church sect called the "Catholic Church" then you are incorrect, as there is only one name under heaven which men are to be saved, that is Jesus, not Catholic.
...wouldn't the burst.com folks still have a copy?
Actually if they did (which I will guess they do) this is a great strategy. Basically if they can get Microsoft to-
1. Be paranoid about which emails to show, and which not to. (ie filter out the old emails that are bad)
2. Leave out important emails. (and therefore show intential deceit)
3. Edit some of the worse/damaging emails (and therefore prove fraud instantly)
Then they are in a good position no matter what... _especially_ if they have copies of all these emails.
One of my clients refuses to work with Microsoft at all, he said there's no way he's going to get burned by spending all the time and effort on debugging and bringing a project to fruition only to get burned my MS, he's seen too many companies go down trying to work with MS.
So, if Burst was smart knowing this, or even suspecting the possibility they may have had enough forthought (sp?) to make a paper trail of sorts... then if they did prepare properly for this eventuality, then IMO they are playing their cards well...
then what are you doing with Lindows in the first place?
I haven't considered it seriously until recently where I want to run a windows application on linux, but I don't have time to learn WINE and Linux... Perhaps that is a good reason.
But the quality stuff is still being made, at comparable prices.
I agree. The point you made about the price difference though is interesting, as it points out that if the majority of products were well crafted the price wouldn't be as bad.
But also it does show that even though there were good products in the past, not everyone could afford them...
Something to note here- (getting back to the original thread) there are original 1950's lightbulbs in my father's basement that still work... So the aspect that incandecent lightbulbs are inherently short term is obviously false. Granted they aren't on all the time, but they are in the laundry room which get's used almost every day... fyi.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because she can't hear doesn't mean she can't make the sounds. Without the sounds there is no speaking regardless of whether or not you can hear it. The sounds she speaks are the sounds of the letters together forming a word.
It's a well known fact that deaf people can feel sounds. Also, a blind person can see with their ears. Your arguments have no supporting data nor facts to support any idea that speaking and reading are unrealted to sound, so if they are related to sound, then phonics is the basis of reading, again, regardless if the person can hear it.
The funny thing is that sound is just vibrations anyways, so the only difference between your friend's perseption of sound through bones and skin and her teeth, she just isn't using ear drums to translate the vibrations into a message to the brain.
This is just a theory, I am no expert...
(80
despite your extended rants you completely fail to understand that Word is working according to design.
yes it is, poorly... ;)
It reformats pages based on the user's printer.
This is a good thing?
Period.
Maybe I am dense, but is this a complete sentence?
If you don't like it, don't use it.
This is the best advice you can give me?
If you have a specific bug, put up or shut up.
ugh, I can't possibly be expected to read your mind, will you please slow down and explain yourself a little more clearly?
As it stands your complaints are as sensible as complaining that the Linux kernel implements POSIX rather than the NT Kernel API.
No, my arugment actually makes sense.
It's a fundemental part of the software.
What? The crashing part or the screwing up files part?
Your comparisons to HTML are so off base to be just plain stupid.
I don't know, I think they look fairly similar... here, what do you think?
HTML <html><head><title>Untitled</title></head><body bgcolor=#FFFFFF>Hello</body></html> RTF {\rtf1\ansi\deff0 {\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss Arial;}}{\colortbl\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\ blue224;\red224\green0\blue0;\red224\green0
\blue224;}{\stylesheet{\s0\fs24 Normal Text;}}\pard \f0\fs24 Hello\par}
HTML doesn't even make an attempt to specify printing!
Perhaps, but does CSS or XML? Think about it...
Not to mention that you're bitching about IE's backcompat when other browsers (ahhm, Mozilla) are far worse.
Plug your ears for this one, open standards NOT MS Standards...
Stop grasping your genitals...
Dr. Freud, please translate this person's facinations...
Hate? ppphhbt! I don't hate MS, I am merely agonized nightly by them...and I am merely sharing my frustrations with my fellow nerd, who understands my pain.... Is this somehow wrong?
I just did! ;)
See that's the problem, do you know how many programs do what Word does? Do you know how many of them are faster, easier to use, install faster and easier, can be uninstalled, don't require registration to continue to run, are cheaper, crash less, don't annoy you, have consistent menus, DON't spew viruses like a whale, don't have annoying paperclips, don't lie about the paperclip going away as a "feature"... (shall I go on?)
It's only takes me a moment to reply, how long does it take you to track down every post considering your aren't getting notified of a reply? Being played for a fool implies I am missing out on something and it's a big joke or I am being scammed, so far I don't see your point, if you have none, that's fine, no skin off my teeth. Just post under a name so it doesn't look like you are afraid for people to know who you are...
The reason they are similar is because HTML, like the word format, has had things slapped onto it (dhtml, plugins, objects, etc...) that weren't part of the original design.
Here's the issue. If I make a document in html 1, and MS makes IE show html 1 docs just fine, but then in an upgrade IE and then the same html 1 files no longer show up right.
Both IE and Word do this to a degree (IE is far worse IMO). They both screw up things they had straight in previous versions, more specificly Word's issues I've found are with sharing files, no real issues on one computer in this regard (other problems though). What's stunning about this is that Word _makes_ it's own files and MS has 100% control over the structure of both the files and the code base in Word to read the files, yet there still is problems with basic display issues.
Look at Macromedia flash, it's backwards compatible to version 1 (future splash) in both the authoring environment all the way through all the run time players. The flash format is a complete mess, cobbled together a piece at a time. (a hard core hacker pointed this out to me when we were making a player for flash files)
What about photoshop files? Freehand or Illustrator? These kinds of documents are far more complex than a simple word document. Macromedia Director files even more so (I can have RTF/HTML docs inside of Director), yet I have never run into version issues with these formats and have been upgrading for some time, and still have files from college that still open in the latest versions. (Director has a limitation of version 5 for the latest compatibility though...)
Call me picky but when I pay as much money for office as I do my other high end software I should be able to expect at _least_ similar quality. I won't bother explaining all the other downfalls of office software, as that's not my main point, but is certainly relevant.
Your point is well taken about the original purpose of word and it's origins perhaps cause this problem. But even Macromedia rewrote it's entire Director engine from scratch at version 8, how hard could it be for MS to do this? ugh, I am going around in circles here, MS makes crap and won't bother fixing it until it hit's their pocketbook, feel free to prove me wrong, but I am sick of the headaches..
They were designed to "vary" perhaps, maybe a better term would be "flexible". But there are still "standards" and if the browser follows them *cough* mozilla *cough* then the pages come out in expected and consistent way, unlike other "WYSIWYG" HTML viewers... *cough* IE *cough*
So is it the fault of RTF, HTML, etc... when a document viewed on differnt computers shows up inaccurately? Or is it the fault of the viewing application itself? (assuming standards are adhered to of course)
To All Anonymous Cowards This is getting old, try researching a little, this is a real problem. _Obviously_ you have the same printer (or no printer) installed on your computers. If not, then the drivers displays don't have issues with eachother.
this may clear things up for you...
Because some files I never plan on printing, have nothing to do with paper and should not be forced to be related to a printer.
If I believed that every word processor in the world did this and it _had_ to do it this way, I wouldn't even bother with a comment. But since _none_ of the other formats or software I've ever used (within my knowledge) base their layout on the printer drivers, then I can only assume this is poorly designed software.
Feel free to prove otherwise, I am certainly not a blind MS basher...
Hard not too be, I just had a bad crash with win2k after upgrading to Service Pack 4, and the thought of having to reinstall Office yet again (ugh) has pushed me to using Open Office.
Also, I lost tons of sensitive data because I used Microsoft's default encryption for my data files and when I reinstalled win2k, I could no longer access my files because Win2k thought I was a different user. After hours of searching online for how to solve this and get my information from my own computer I have gone slightly mad. (and I still can't get my data)
So use an earlier version of Office supporting XML and save it to a different format.
The last thing I want to have todo is reinstall windows on my machine so I can install an older version of office (as you can't downgrade it or uninstall it fully) just to manage my data....
If it were only paranoia and not real world agony I would be relieved...
Word _acts_ like a layout program only very poorly. Sure it is a WYSIWYG but I don't see how this definition has anything to do with it's behaviour, the point of WYSIWYG is that what I see on the screen is what I print, but it also means that what I see is what other people will see as well, and if they don't see the same thing, then something is broken, as in webpages not looking right on different browsers due to not sticking with globally recognized html standards. *hint* IE.
designing software that reformats documents when you change the printer is harder than not doing so.
Then if high quality layout programs (quark for example) or low quality programs don't do this, and it's actually more work to code, and it produces more inconsistent printing, why does MS code Word this way?
Considering that the reference implementation of RTF is Microsoft Word, I doubt it.
I don't use Word for reading or editing RTF files. Outside of that, I really don't know what you are saying...
I don't particularily think that they need "a higher standard" I think they need an "open standard". If I am wrong, and their standard is fine with people who are more in the know than I am, great.
But since I don't trust Microsoft, I won't be investing any more money in Office just because my concerns over formats have been cured by their implementation of XML.
All of these changes has caused some information loss.
I suppose, but at least I know those formats won't be changed in the future with the itention of product lock-in. Also, from what I have read, some Office documents contain personally identifying information about the creator of the document, I haven't taken the time to look into it though.
No one else has these problems?
really?
That's interesting, does anyone think it's good software design to have a completely external and seperate entity (printer driver) determine how things should be displayed? What if neither one of us had a printer installed? What if I change my printer in the future? I will then lose my formatting? This some how sounds insane...
I personally think that MS should have enough foresite to see this as an issue and make some kind of abstraction layer between file data and printer drivers.
I've never seen a PDF, TXT, or RTF file get screwed up because of these reasons...
Who is saying MS is/will forever use only XML in their formats? I think it's naive of us to think just because they use XML that it will be compatible and remain compatible with other office like products.
This is a trust issue. The last thing I want to find out is that after 3 upgrades to office, I can no longer open any of my archived documents, or that I have to upgrade again to maintain my documents. Also, I don't want to have to upgrade Office just because my clients have a newer version so I can't read their files.
This is what concerns me is that my data is in a format that is in constant limbo without long term gurantees of the integrity of the applications (or it's formats) that create and update my data.
Considering that within 1 upgrade cycle I have lost information, what will happen within 2 or 3? Sure you can keep older copies of office, but what if you no longer can run them because the OS they are on is obsolete you upgraded that as well? You also can't have more than one version of Office on one machine at the same time, etc...
This is a real problem, not an imaginary one that is based on opinions about XML. XML is a markup language, my opinion about how to use it is actually irrelevant.
Let me clarify for you:
I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.
This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.
This is _not_ a user error, it's simple lack of proper backwards compatibility.
Is there any point in replying to this?
Let me clarify for you:
I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.
This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.
Calling someone a moron without knowing the facts is obviously the only reason for posting as an Anonymous Coward.
I didn't mention anything about a "standard", I said "compatible".
If you call OpenOffice XML format - standard,
No, I didn't.
then Microsoft Office XML is standard is well. It is just a different standard.
Most things MS creates use different standards, that is the problem. Microsoft's own Office programs can't even open their own files without it getting messed up, what is the point in trusting any new document designs they come up with?
Because one developer says that MS is using XML standards correctly, does this mean that MS will actually keep it's formats open and backwards compatible?
Keep in mind it's the MS developement team that have created the file format mess in the past that is so horrid that entire countries are moving away from your closed formats. I can't even send an word 2000 doc to my father in-law who has OfficeXP with out it getting screwed up.
Even if what you say is 100% accurate, and MS delivers a compatible format that works with say, OpenOffice and Start Office, you have absoultely _NO_ gurantees that MS will not change the file format on the next upgrade and at that point turn the data to a completely proprietary form that is accessible only to the next upgrade of office.
Very few people in their right minds will trust MS anymore, and for good reasons.
You may be able to do all you say you can with regards to reading, but _only_ because you can already read at a compitent level. A child just learning to read can do none of the things you described.
:)
A good example is programming. If you are a programmer you will remember a time when you looked at code and it didn't make any sense at all. Then after learning to decode the meaning of the code (no pun intended) you were able to understand the meaning of it, reguardless of any sounds related to the words of the code.
Anyways, the only issue I really see with all this is that in the whole language world adults assume because something is easy for them and makes sense that that is the way they should teach kids, which is a really bad way to teach.
In regards to your experience with reading, I feel the same way, reading is frequently an effortless task to which sometimes I am able to simply obsorb (sp?) words. I just wish I could speed read.
I am no reading expert but a good friend of mine is. From what I gathered from him is that the actual act of "decoding" a written word into a spoken word is the very first step in reading.
If you don't know what the sound the letter "P" makes you can never ever read the letter. So the basics of reading _is_ phonics. Phonics is not some kind of "method" of teaching how to read, it is a process that every single person reading this text right now has to go through in order to decode the imagery into a sound.
Then once the person get's good enough at it they no longer have to focus concious attention to the decoding process as it becomes automatic.
But even I as a very skilled reader when I run into a very new, large or complex word I _have_ to sound it out, or attempt to, because that is the only way a human being can read.
Decoding visual symbols to auditory symbols = phonics.
Then after the steps of decoding comes comprehension, which is totally seperate from decoding. (I am sure I have the order of events wrong here...) A child can sound out the sentence-
"Frank went to the market to buy a german shepard"
-but they still need to understand what they decoded. Whole language is a guessing game based on assumptions and values that are not concretely 100% based on a system of the intetional ordering of the letters in relation to their auditory equivilants.
As adults we can use whole language easily in the sense that we can guess words based on previous knowledge of the word (written and spoken) but not so for a small child that has never decoded any words.
As an example my daughter likes to guess words because that is how they started in Kindegarten, with sight words ( a huge mistake ). So she started with the habit of merely memorizing shapes of words without even considering the auditory values of the letters of those words.
After teaching my daughter some very basic decoding skills based on help from my friend, my daughter learned to read words she's never seen before. She read the word "giraffe" all by herself using her new found decoding skills. I gurantee you that no skills of the "whole language" idealogy would come close to providing this kind of reading ability in a 6 year old kid.
Can you explain in detail, step by step how you know how to read the word "giraffe"? In whole language you don't have steps to parse the sounds out and recombine them.
Here's the logic.
1. "g" sounds like G as in "Great"
2. "ir" sounds like "er" as in "Her"
3. "a" sounds like "a" in "hat"
4. "ff" sounds like "f" in "fast"
5. "e" sounds like "e" in "see"
Then the child comes initially with the word "geraffy" when it should be "jeraf"
The child at age 6 knows many thousands of words, and does not recognize "geraffy" so...
1. Child recognizes the silent "e"
2. Over compensates and makes the "a" sound like "a" in "bay"
3. "g" can sound like "j"
4. Now has word "jerayf"
5. Reverts the "ay" to "a", considers it a mistake, and gets-
6. "jeraf" which is the correct sound, at which time the child jumps up and down with glee.
But even easier is reading the word in a sentence. "I saw a giraffe at the zoo today"
As competent readers we automatically do all the calculations that this child does when we find a new word. After a number of times reading a word, the decoding is either automatic and extermely fast or as I like to view it in my own mind, there is a pre-rendered cached version of the word "giraffe" sitting in my mind, so when I see the word in it's whole, I know it's meaning without having to completely parse the word a single block at a time (by letter) but by the whole word itself.
Some of this is my opinion and the rest is raw fatual data.
98% or more of all the spam I get is from the email address I have stored in WHOIS. WHOIS is a nasty spam database with guranteed users at the end of each email...
Regardless of the 200 other places you can find my contact information online, there is no doubt what-so-ever that WHOIS's current system is a disaster that needs to be fixed.
In your other posts you also show a desire for the truth, of which we both share a desire for the truth. I have noted in this particular post things that may be of intrest to you regarding the truth.
God is actually a Trinity, and neither the Muslims nor the Jews acknowledge this.
The Bible is very clear that there is only 2 beings of the God family, God the Father and God the Son (Jesus), not three. There are many scriptures that explain this even starting in Genesis, yet there is no scripture to show God is a trinity in any way.
God calls everyone to become members of His Church
Jesus said "many are called" _not_ "everyone".
Matthew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen."
His Church, the Catholic Church.
God's Church is recognized by the name of Jesus Christ and God, not the Catholic name. Refer to these scriptures, which all call the Church by it's true name.
1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Corinthians 10:32, 1 Corinthians 11:16, 1 Corinthians 11:22, 1 Corinthians 15:9, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Galatians 1:13, 1 Thessalonians 2:14, 2 Thessalonians 1:4, 1 Timothy 3:15
Since the meaning of the word "Catholic" in Greek is "universal", by your statement you are saying that to be saved you must be universal, which doesn't make sense. So then if you are saying you have to be of a certain church sect called the "Catholic Church" then you are incorrect, as there is only one name under heaven which men are to be saved, that is Jesus, not Catholic.
Acts 4:12, 2:21
Actually if they did (which I will guess they do) this is a great strategy. Basically if they can get Microsoft to-
1. Be paranoid about which emails to show, and which not to. (ie filter out the old emails that are bad)
2. Leave out important emails. (and therefore show intential deceit)
3. Edit some of the worse/damaging emails (and therefore prove fraud instantly)
Then they are in a good position no matter what... _especially_ if they have copies of all these emails.
One of my clients refuses to work with Microsoft at all, he said there's no way he's going to get burned by spending all the time and effort on debugging and bringing a project to fruition only to get burned my MS, he's seen too many companies go down trying to work with MS.
So, if Burst was smart knowing this, or even suspecting the possibility they may have had enough forthought (sp?) to make a paper trail of sorts... then if they did prepare properly for this eventuality, then IMO they are playing their cards well...
I haven't considered it seriously until recently where I want to run a windows application on linux, but I don't have time to learn WINE and Linux... Perhaps that is a good reason.
I agree. The point you made about the price difference though is interesting, as it points out that if the majority of products were well crafted the price wouldn't be as bad.
But also it does show that even though there were good products in the past, not everyone could afford them...
Something to note here- (getting back to the original thread) there are original 1950's lightbulbs in my father's basement that still work... So the aspect that incandecent lightbulbs are inherently short term is obviously false. Granted they aren't on all the time, but they are in the laundry room which get's used almost every day... fyi.