Personally, I've taken to using the CDDL. It's not GPL-compatible (and I like it that way), but provides all the benefits of the LGPL with none of the annoying drawbacks.
Actually, having met Zed once, I was surprised at how personable the guy was--I'd be surprised if there was a group he couldn't work with. I chalked it up to the Maddox Effect: Maddox writes as a bombastic douchebag, but is a pretty shy and soft-spoken dude in person.
'Renting'? That's cute. Freetarded, but cute. I have the discs right here, as a result of my purchase. Microsoft cannot magically wave a want and take them away. If they attempt to disable them in an attempt to push a new version that does not have features I deem valuable enough to purchase, I will crack the software I already own and make it work.
The rest of your post is the same inane bullshit you'd write off in the open source world with WorksForMe(tm). Printing Word 2003 documents work fine for me. Tables work fine for me, and are exposed in a more intelligent manner to the end user--to match your shitty little snark for shitty little snark, it's not their fault you aren't smart enough to pick it up when the rest of us get along just fine.
I'm not so sure this is going to continue in the near future, though. It seems like 1080p for video is about as good as it's going to get for most consumer applications, at least for a few years. We may be at a lull in the increase of file sizes, but I could be wrong.
I found that it helps if you think of a Word document as you would HTML and CSS. Each paragraph gets styled, like a P tag. Inside a paragraph, use another style on a span of text, i.e. the SPAN tag. Images within a paragraph can be told to float, etc.
It kind of falls over when you consider DIVs (which would probably be the text box or whatever), but it was a good metaphor when I started really digging into Word.
Because the average user will stick with the new defaults and generally find them superior. Heck, I used to be one of the people who had a bunch of customizations in Word in order to quickly access whatever I wanted. Even if Office 2007 supported them, I don't think I'd be using them. The new defaults are nice.
As for multiple user customizable toolbars: ROFL. Something tells me (and HCI research has backed this up) that most people don't give a fuck about them. Office is not designed for you. It is designed for Joe Average. A better default for Joe Average may not be better for you. Oh well.
If you're using styles (which you should be, I don't care what you think is a good exception to this statement because it's not a good exception), Reveal Formatting in Word gives a lot of the same functionality.
Excel's cut-and-paste is handled as it is because that's the norm for spreadsheets and has been for a long time. Whether it's good or not is debatable (I don't really like it), but they do have a good reason for it.
This is not only true for Office products, but operating systems as well. Seriously, Windows 7? Why did they rename/move around everything I need to know. Why can't it START in classic mode and I can make it flashy if I want it to be...
Because HCI experts are tailoring to the average user, not you. You're in theory smart enough to adjust the settings to what you like. They cannot be relied upon to do so. The defaults much be sane for them and tailored to them.
And do you honestly expect Word 2003 to work with Windows 8 or 9? I can't say Microsoft would be too interested in making that work out if the support contract is worn out.
Word for Windows 6.0 works with Vista (at least 32-bit versions). Office 95 works with Vista x64. I doubt there's much to worry about.
I fit that statement too, and I bought Office 2007 after using it on school computers. Why? Because the difference in productivity between 2003 (which I already owned, so I had no reason to use OpenOffice) and 2007 is huge. It's just a hell of a lot nicer to actually work with, and I dig it. The cost, as high as it was (like $60 or something), was worth it because the improvements are that good.
I would argue that OpenOffice Writer is inferior. It's slower. It's ugly. It lacks a lot of the niceties of Word 2007 (unless they added stuff like the formatting-menu-on-hover gizmo that Word 2007 has in a recent release, I haven't installed it since 3.0 and didn't really play with it much).
It's a workable program, but it's not really as good as either 2003 or 2007. Frankly I think KOffice has a better chance of being a really good Office competitor than OpenOffice ever will.
I would also add the requirement of actually running GNOME through sane HCI guidelines (I don't care what your reasoning is, no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]") and coming with paid support for media codecs in the box, but yes, the setup is the real killer.
# Use zero modal dialogs. They force the user to act at the software's behest to continue doing what they want. Making the user your software's bitch. Making
A modal dialog often has value, in that it focuses the user's attention on something that, generally, is necessary to actually do what the user wants. Take Visual Studio for example. If I click "run," and a file has changed since the last build, it'll ask me whether I want to build again before I run the application. You could assume they want to build again, but for some people that may not be what they want, so it asks. Of course, for many workflow options, this only needs to be exposed to the user once. Visual Studio asks me whether I want to build before running, but there's a checkbox that tells it not to ask me again. I check it, click "Yes," and it never bothers me again--but now it acts the way I want it to, every time.
There are many uses of modal dialog boxes that everyone gets wrong, however. No, I don't want to send user statistics ANYWHERE, and you should not be popping up a modal dialog and keeping me from doing what I want in your vain attempt to get me to do so.
Your other points, however, are right on the money. Great post.
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Any RoR shop using Mongrel is essentially doing that.
If that's what you got out of his rant, you didn't read it too closely.
Pretty sure he's wrong.
Personally, I've taken to using the CDDL. It's not GPL-compatible (and I like it that way), but provides all the benefits of the LGPL with none of the annoying drawbacks.
If you do dual-license your OSS, you just made it damn impossible for anyone to contribute back.
Ain't that a bitch?
Actually, having met Zed once, I was surprised at how personable the guy was--I'd be surprised if there was a group he couldn't work with. I chalked it up to the Maddox Effect: Maddox writes as a bombastic douchebag, but is a pretty shy and soft-spoken dude in person.
'Renting'? That's cute. Freetarded, but cute. I have the discs right here, as a result of my purchase. Microsoft cannot magically wave a want and take them away. If they attempt to disable them in an attempt to push a new version that does not have features I deem valuable enough to purchase, I will crack the software I already own and make it work.
The rest of your post is the same inane bullshit you'd write off in the open source world with WorksForMe(tm). Printing Word 2003 documents work fine for me. Tables work fine for me, and are exposed in a more intelligent manner to the end user--to match your shitty little snark for shitty little snark, it's not their fault you aren't smart enough to pick it up when the rest of us get along just fine.
I'm not so sure this is going to continue in the near future, though. It seems like 1080p for video is about as good as it's going to get for most consumer applications, at least for a few years. We may be at a lull in the increase of file sizes, but I could be wrong.
I found that it helps if you think of a Word document as you would HTML and CSS. Each paragraph gets styled, like a P tag. Inside a paragraph, use another style on a span of text, i.e. the SPAN tag. Images within a paragraph can be told to float, etc.
It kind of falls over when you consider DIVs (which would probably be the text box or whatever), but it was a good metaphor when I started really digging into Word.
Because the average user will stick with the new defaults and generally find them superior. Heck, I used to be one of the people who had a bunch of customizations in Word in order to quickly access whatever I wanted. Even if Office 2007 supported them, I don't think I'd be using them. The new defaults are nice.
Except for that whole "quick launch" bar.
As for multiple user customizable toolbars: ROFL. Something tells me (and HCI research has backed this up) that most people don't give a fuck about them. Office is not designed for you. It is designed for Joe Average. A better default for Joe Average may not be better for you. Oh well.
If you're using styles (which you should be, I don't care what you think is a good exception to this statement because it's not a good exception), Reveal Formatting in Word gives a lot of the same functionality.
Excel's cut-and-paste is handled as it is because that's the norm for spreadsheets and has been for a long time. Whether it's good or not is debatable (I don't really like it), but they do have a good reason for it.
This is not only true for Office products, but operating systems as well. Seriously, Windows 7? Why did they rename/move around everything I need to know. Why can't it START in classic mode and I can make it flashy if I want it to be...
Because HCI experts are tailoring to the average user, not you. You're in theory smart enough to adjust the settings to what you like. They cannot be relied upon to do so. The defaults much be sane for them and tailored to them.
Belt up and deal with it.
And do you honestly expect Word 2003 to work with Windows 8 or 9? I can't say Microsoft would be too interested in making that work out if the support contract is worn out.
Word for Windows 6.0 works with Vista (at least 32-bit versions). Office 95 works with Vista x64. I doubt there's much to worry about.
I fit that statement too, and I bought Office 2007 after using it on school computers. Why? Because the difference in productivity between 2003 (which I already owned, so I had no reason to use OpenOffice) and 2007 is huge. It's just a hell of a lot nicer to actually work with, and I dig it. The cost, as high as it was (like $60 or something), was worth it because the improvements are that good.
I would argue that OpenOffice Writer is inferior. It's slower. It's ugly. It lacks a lot of the niceties of Word 2007 (unless they added stuff like the formatting-menu-on-hover gizmo that Word 2007 has in a recent release, I haven't installed it since 3.0 and didn't really play with it much).
It's a workable program, but it's not really as good as either 2003 or 2007. Frankly I think KOffice has a better chance of being a really good Office competitor than OpenOffice ever will.
I would also add the requirement of actually running GNOME through sane HCI guidelines (I don't care what your reasoning is, no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]") and coming with paid support for media codecs in the box, but yes, the setup is the real killer.
This hasn't been true for at least a decade, perhaps more, and no amount of protesting or wishing otherwise will change it back.
To me it's akin to a literature major being able to write very well in one human language.
Most can't.
The underlying ATM hardware is not built by the same companies. The new ones don't market OS/2. So you're kind of screwed.
Feel free, but we get our guns.
# Use zero modal dialogs. They force the user to act at the software's behest to continue doing what they want. Making the user your software's bitch.
Making
A modal dialog often has value, in that it focuses the user's attention on something that, generally, is necessary to actually do what the user wants. Take Visual Studio for example. If I click "run," and a file has changed since the last build, it'll ask me whether I want to build again before I run the application. You could assume they want to build again, but for some people that may not be what they want, so it asks. Of course, for many workflow options, this only needs to be exposed to the user once. Visual Studio asks me whether I want to build before running, but there's a checkbox that tells it not to ask me again. I check it, click "Yes," and it never bothers me again--but now it acts the way I want it to, every time.
There are many uses of modal dialog boxes that everyone gets wrong, however. No, I don't want to send user statistics ANYWHERE, and you should not be popping up a modal dialog and keeping me from doing what I want in your vain attempt to get me to do so.
Your other points, however, are right on the money. Great post.
If it does not run under Linux could this be considered an anti-competitive move by Microsoft to keep Linux out of the desktop or netbook market?
Is Office not being on Linux an anti-competitive move, or just not targeting a miniscule segment of the market?
That's not what he means.
To get the headphone jack upgrades, they needed new ATMs. Retrofitting old ones would have been very costly in terms of manpower.
OS/2 does not run on those new ATMs.
I was thinking Windows, but apparently NT does have copy-on-write. My bad.