I'm not saying there are not examples to be had. But... Your argument has a couple minor flaws with it.
1) A vendor has to actually write an application that can save to the OOXML format. To date there are zero applications that do that. Office 2007 doesn't even follow it - so I've read at least. That was one of the reasons it doesn't fit the ideal of what a standard is - no vendor implementations. 2) That has to become the "defacto" standard that things like resumes are submitted in. The current standard for this (that I know of) is PDF - or at least the preferred format. Failing that a .doc format. 3) If I am writing an application that will take in resumes and parse them out, then I have control over what formats I will support. Or my customer does. If/when OOXML has the backing that .doc has (industry backing - not MS backing), then this may be an issue. Until then it's not a format I need to care about. Even if I use an existing library, as a developer I'm worried about things like efficiency. A library to handle an OOXML document will be much larger, slower, and more prone to errors than a library to parse ODF. Simply because there is SOOO much more to OOXML than needed. Finding an example where a programmer may need to worry about OOXML is easy. But until OOXML has the acceptance that ODF or even .doc files do, then it's just a piece of paper MS can wave around saying they also have a standard they can follow. There is still a choice. Programmers will need to be paid good money to write something for OOXML. It is in a business's best interests to go with the easier standard - ODF - when writing code. (less effort/time/money) It is in MS's best interests to pimp out OOXML now for all it's worth - but only they benefit from it. Shawn bogi wrote: > Ok Shawn, here is a simple example, write a web application to process > submitted resumes, and pick out some pre-selected keywords in the resumes , > and yes, do that with ooxml documents too, not just the odf and the pure text > and pdf once... A simple example. > Can make more if you like ... > Cheers > Szemir > > On April 1, 2008 17:55, Shawn wrote: >> bogi wrote: >>> Shawn, It does have an effect on you as a programmer. By becoming a >>> standard, you as a programmer will have to implement code to read and >>> write documents in that format, and since a significant part of the >>> standard involves >> Where does it say that? Who is standing behind me with the whip to make >> me? I have a choice if I want to do this. A standard does not make the >> choice for me. I would only care if I am writing code that needs to >> talk with Microsoft products and/or OOXML based products. a) that's not >> likely (for me), and b) I can still convince people to use the easier >> (and already existing) solution. >> >>> proprietary and patented Microsoft software and algorithms, you would >>> have no hope of producing a reasonable reproduction of the format without >>> those proprietary and closely guarded (ip) of Microsoft, and they may >>> decide not to give it to you at all, specially if you are an open source >>> developer or developing a competing application to theirs. >>> Unfortunately by winning, Microsoft has destroyed the credibility of ISO >>> as a credible source of reference regarding what flies and what does not. >> I tend to agree with the rest of your comments. The next year will be >> interesting to see what happens with the standardization process. I >> think we'll see lots of fallout from this. A flawed system has been >> identified, and in the nature of Open Source a better system will be >> found to minimize those flaws. Or perhaps I have too much faith in >> humanity? :) >> >> Shawn >> >> _______________________________________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca >> Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) >> **Please remove these lines when replying > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
