On 2024-07-22 06:23, Bob Bridges wrote:
I get that, I really do. But, darn it all...
Years ago I worked for Volvo Truck NA (we built the big long-haul
tractors). We were a WordPerfect shop, and one of my unofficial
responsibilities was to struggle with each new version of WP. I'd
report all problems, work with their customer support, and after a
while (usually a month or so) I'd tell my boss it was ready to
distribute to everyone else.
"But wait", you ask, "was it really so buggy? Didn't that bother you?"
Yes, it was, and I always said well, just how do you test for every
combination of machine and OS and likely use in the world? It can't be
done. So I wasn't surprised or dismayed at the process.
One year I was busy with something else and just didn't have the time
to go through it. Somehow in the delay, the company changed to MS
Word. Many of us hated the change ("where's reveal-codes mode?!"), and
I still have major complaints with some aspects of Word. But a) it's
too late; it's taken over the world, and anyway b) it was too late, it
took over Volvo. But the main point here is that despite what I argued
in WP's defense, Word didn't have those bugs to struggle with at each
new release.
It didn't?
Every new release since Word 1.1a had more bugs than the previous one,
and MS didn't fix the bugs that were in the previous version.
Word 6 changed the values generated with the ALT key and 3 keystrokes
with the number pad;
but the killer was changing a document from footnotes to endnotes.
Word 6 crashed, and you lost the lot.
Over the years, more and more functionality disappeared from Word.
The first to go was the ability to generate an index automatically;
next to go were formulas.
Then MS introduced .docx files.
Yeah, I know even MS isn't perfect. And the recent disaster wouldn't
have been nearly such a disaster if MS weren't so ubiquitous; we need
diversity in computer hardware and software to keep stuff like this
from wiping us out (as Cliff Stoll points out).
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