On Fri, 30 Jun 2000, Niall Kavanagh wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Jeffry Smith wrote:
>
> >
> > Except that the next time MS changes their interface, and they get
> > ready to send the person back to school to learn the upgraded
> > software, they'll look at it and say "why don't we just learn one of
> > the Linux packages. They read all the documents we produce, they
> > don't keep changing the formats, it's more stable, and, as long as
> > we're spending the money on training, we might as well train them on
> > this." Formatting changes? I have seen it continually between Word
> > versions. MS's answer: Just upgrade. Send us money. Yet, I can still (or could
> > when I had windows running) read WP8 documents in my old WP3 / DOS
> > package. yes, some things got lost, but the format was such that when
> > WP3 didn't understand a tag, it ignored it.
>
> Just some thoughts your post stuck in my head... not neccessarily
> disagreeing! ;)
>
> Eh? File formats change under linux. Perhaps even more so given that
> many of the tools are in heavy development (at the same time we are
> using them in production).
>
Normally, they change for good reason, not just for upgrades. Also,
because you have the source, you can (or have someone) hack your
program to read the new format, if you need to. Or upgrade, if there
are features you need. Mind you, although the current free document
formats are changing, that's because they're alpha. TeX hasn't
changed in years.
> Hell, the locations of configuration files are different from distro to
> distro, and even within new releases of the same distro!
>
> There is no standard interface, and even those that are contenders (KDE
> and Gnome) don't have sufficient usability guidelines. A lot of the Gnome
> apps I've seen aren't even consistant within themselves, let alone other
> Gnome apps.
>
Agree that we need better usability guides.
> Why upgrade your MS software? To be perfectly honest, the current crop of
> Office/IE tools are more than enough for 99% of computer users.
>
Sigh. Because they change the file format in an incompatible way.
Then they tie new sales to the hardware, so folks start using the new
software (for the same tasks as the old, and it works probably worse
for those things, but it comes with the computer). Now, you start
getting documents in the new format. So, the PHBs figure, we need to
upgrade to read the documents (instead of demanding that others use
the old formats, or open formats like RTF). So, you upgrade, sending
money to MS. And you need training on it, so you spend money on it
(with the fee to MS for the training material & "certification").
And, you need documents, because it comes with non / lousy. So you
buy the books (many of which are from MS Press).
In terms of functionality, I'd say most people use less than 50%,
possibly less than 25% of the current functionality.
> People have it in their head that they have to get the latest and
> greatest, without examining the reasons behind it. If it works and it's
> not causing security problems -- leave it alone!
>
>
No argument there. Unfortunately, I'm not the one arguing for it, the
PHB's are.
>
> --
> Niall Kavanagh, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> News, articles, and resources for web professionals and developers:
> http://www.kst.com
>
jeff
ps: when's the interpretive dance?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9379 fax:978.446.9470
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thought for today: The cost of feathers has risen, even down is up!
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