Ms. Word does not understand English grammar, and many of its suggestions are beside the point, unnecessary, plain wrong, or downright crazy. Understood as a proofreading tool, the grammar checker can be useful to a confident editor or author, but it does not operate as labeled.
The lack of this dangerous tool can hardly be construed as a serious defect.
As a tech writer forced to use Word for years I feel like a person who has been kidnapped and forcibly addicted to heroin. To think that I once knew vi, troff, and FrameMaker!
Nevertheless, fair is fair on one of Dvorak's points. Dvorak complains about the mess you get when you accumulate too many marked-up changes in Word. I don't know of any automated diffs tool that doesn't get confused once the bulk of changes gets beyond a certain point, or once you start moving whole sections of text around. The same thing used to happen when we would diff two versions of a troff document. After a certain point, the whole document was one big change.
Best practice is never to accumulate more than one round of comments/revisions per version: when you have dealt with those and the necessary approvals are in, you accept all the changes in the document and start afresh. The old markup becomes dead copy once all its issues have been addressed. If you want to save it, do so separately from the newly finalized version.
Yes. Anyway, the number of development projects using a language is not necessarily the measure of its usefulness or the extent to which it is used. JavaScript is everywhere in HTML but has few whole projects compared with other "languages."
The number of utility scripts and small applications in Perl must be astronomical (many of these of course are available on CPAN and don't need to be developed).
I agree. I think it's important that Dell is a manufacturer with a big business clientele that could be expected to provide at least an adequate hardware platform.
There's a danger that the Linux desktop (Linspire or some other) could become the OS of choice for defective cut-rate boxes, which wouldn't help the reputation at all.
If it's unethical to do a look-alike OS, where does that leave MicroSlop, who reverse-engineered DOS from another OS and tried to copy the Mac desktop with the early releases of Windows?
Linux does too have personal finance and digital photo-management s/w! Sourceforge and the Lindows (now Linspire) warehouse are bristling with them. Don't know about games
Overall, the problem with NASA is that it has to keep doing "clowns in space" to maintain its funding. Space Station; manned missions to Mars, space stations on the Moon--there are much cheaper (and far more effective) ways of doing the revolutionary science that is NASA's great legacy.
How ironic that the occasional shuttle mission to service the scientifically invaluable Hubble should be considered too expensive when compared with the continuing Disney extravaganza of manned space exploration that is deemed indispensable.
I worked nearly five years for NASA as a consultant and consistently found that NASA people were as hard-working and tireless as anyone in the private sector (and I have the experience to back that up). The head of the division that employed me literally worked himnself to death trying (successfully, if temporarily) to bring about consensus on an experimental program.
NASA has enabled breaktrhough science that continues to revolutionize our view of man's place in the universe (think of the Cosmic Background Explorer, to name only one instance).
If all this is steeped in political corruption--for example, the whole sales pitch for "clowns in space" as a loss leader in the struggle for prestige during the Cold War--this simply makes our time no different from any other. What scientists actually do for a living is much dirtier that anyone steeped in Thomas Kuhn is likely to realize--and when has it ever been different?
A little realism, please, folks. We are all supposed to be adults here.
Having said so much, one wonders whether O'Keefe's decision was based on the fear of another shuttle disaster as much as on a desire to exploit Bush's Mars-inspired political infatuation with the space agency. Wouldn't it be nice to have a suite of new Great Observatories, not just another repair mission?
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The lack of this dangerous tool can hardly be construed as a serious defect.
Whoever modded this comment is a fucking imbecile.
Our culture, like our politics and economy, is belated, bloodless, and exhausted. Everyone is tired of it.
That's why most people are far more interested in music technology than they are in music.
As a tech writer forced to use Word for years I feel like a person who has been kidnapped and forcibly addicted to heroin. To think that I once knew vi, troff, and FrameMaker! Nevertheless, fair is fair on one of Dvorak's points. Dvorak complains about the mess you get when you accumulate too many marked-up changes in Word. I don't know of any automated diffs tool that doesn't get confused once the bulk of changes gets beyond a certain point, or once you start moving whole sections of text around. The same thing used to happen when we would diff two versions of a troff document. After a certain point, the whole document was one big change. Best practice is never to accumulate more than one round of comments/revisions per version: when you have dealt with those and the necessary approvals are in, you accept all the changes in the document and start afresh. The old markup becomes dead copy once all its issues have been addressed. If you want to save it, do so separately from the newly finalized version.
To summarize: we shouldn't go prion into matters that don't concern us.
Yes. Anyway, the number of development projects using a language is not necessarily the measure of its usefulness or the extent to which it is used. JavaScript is everywhere in HTML but has few whole projects compared with other "languages."
The number of utility scripts and small applications in Perl must be astronomical (many of these of course are available on CPAN and don't need to be developed).
I agree. I think it's important that Dell is a manufacturer with a big business clientele that could be expected to provide at least an adequate hardware platform. There's a danger that the Linux desktop (Linspire or some other) could become the OS of choice for defective cut-rate boxes, which wouldn't help the reputation at all.
If it's unethical to do a look-alike OS, where does that leave MicroSlop, who reverse-engineered DOS from another OS and tried to copy the Mac desktop with the early releases of Windows?
Fiddle-faddle.
Linux does too have personal finance and digital photo-management s/w! Sourceforge and the Lindows (now Linspire) warehouse are bristling with them. Don't know about games
Overall, the problem with NASA is that it has to keep doing "clowns in space" to maintain its funding. Space Station; manned missions to Mars, space stations on the Moon--there are much cheaper (and far more effective) ways of doing the revolutionary science that is NASA's great legacy.
How ironic that the occasional shuttle mission to service the scientifically invaluable Hubble should be considered too expensive when compared with the continuing Disney extravaganza of manned space exploration that is deemed indispensable.
I worked nearly five years for NASA as a consultant and consistently found that NASA people were as hard-working and tireless as anyone in the private sector (and I have the experience to back that up). The head of the division that employed me literally worked himnself to death trying (successfully, if temporarily) to bring about consensus on an experimental program. NASA has enabled breaktrhough science that continues to revolutionize our view of man's place in the universe (think of the Cosmic Background Explorer, to name only one instance). If all this is steeped in political corruption--for example, the whole sales pitch for "clowns in space" as a loss leader in the struggle for prestige during the Cold War--this simply makes our time no different from any other. What scientists actually do for a living is much dirtier that anyone steeped in Thomas Kuhn is likely to realize--and when has it ever been different? A little realism, please, folks. We are all supposed to be adults here. Having said so much, one wonders whether O'Keefe's decision was based on the fear of another shuttle disaster as much as on a desire to exploit Bush's Mars-inspired political infatuation with the space agency. Wouldn't it be nice to have a suite of new Great Observatories, not just another repair mission?