[Leaplist] MSFT's OpenXML format is as expected - not open

[Fred Moore]

On Friday 05 January 2007 10:36, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Friday 05 January 2007 09:45, Fred Moore wrote:
> > On Friday 05 January 2007 09:17, Damien McKenna wrote:
> > > http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-hire-guillaume-portes.html
> > > In short, Microsoft littered their specification with comments that
> > > require you to reverse engineer Word 95 to make software fully able to
> > > accurately interpret the files.
> >
> > I hope you didn't expect something different.. I think we all  knew it
> > was not open.. nor did we expect it to be..  adding the word open behind
> > something is like calling a corporation FED or Federal Reserve to make
> > you belive they are part of the government..
> > There is nothing in a name.. it is in the intent, observed actions and
> > history..  all three speak for the company using the word.. Fred
>
> I think the real funeral dirge in this document is the comments at the end,
> where accessibility to 20 year old documents is discussed. Makes me want to
> go back to paper.
>
> SteveT

The oldest stuff I have in electronic format dates back to some SGML stuff.. I 
wrote on a 360/70 after that was teX and wordstar.. I can still read wordstar 
because it was stored in ASCII I even remember writing a wordstar2ASCII 
converter.. it was in z80 assembler.. As I remember my first C project after 
reading K&R was to convert the wordstar2ASCII machine program to C.  

I think the simple solution is teX and LateX   When most people think teX they 
are really talking about LateX.   I have been contemplating a presentation on 
both, but don't know what the interest is..  If there is some guess I could 
get it done.. 

In my business I have been using Openoffice to write reports, each survey gets 
one.. they are 20-50 pages in length..  I was driving sections inside the 
reports with variables inside the document..  It seems each and every new 
release of OO was breaking either accessing a variable or trashing a macro.. 
so decided to stop fighting it till it matures in this arena...  for the less 
than advance user you can't beat OO..

About two months ago I converted everything to Latex..  Again I found 
simplicity a real confort..  I am back to the days when I was teaching 
publishing to customers on the old trusty DecVax..  I still firmly believe 
that content should be separate and distinct from presentations.. Using a 
WYSIWYG word processor puts you in a state of mind that presentation is 
primary.. where in reality the software should just take care of 
presentation, you should only be concentrating on content.. Using Latex I am 
back there..   In OO when I converted the report to PDF it required about 70 
seconds.. (my machine).. when using pdflateX it takes about .5 seconds to 
compile and write the report.. 

Using old reliable tools like LateX insures that you will always be able to 
read format and convert your documents to anything you ever want in the 
future..   There is much more that can be said for Device Independence.. Fred


>
> Steve Litt
> Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/
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-- 
Fred Moore
WD8KNI
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