Hi :) I think there is another category between 1 and 2. 1.3 People that are completely clueless about macros or any programming concepts but try to use some sort of macro-recorder and then blame other people when their macro doesn't work. Since they haven't anticipated or prepared for anything being even slightly different on users machines their macros quite often go wrong until users learn to follow some arcane and archaic ritual in order to use the macro. This group tends to find the need to 'write' macros for everything however unnecessary and however easier it is to accomplish the same thing without using a macro. The arcane ritual is blamed on macros and gives the impression that macros are more difficult than they really are and they are quite complicated enough without adding that layer of FUD. It bolsters the opinion that the writer must be really skilful in being able to understand macros, oooooh they surely deserve to be promoted.
Wow!! I guess i am having a really bad hair day! Regards from Tom :) >________________________________ > From: Jay Lozier <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Sent: Monday, 24 September 2012, 13:31 >Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: MS raised prices so people will now start >renting their office products instead > >On 09/24/2012 06:11 AM, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote: >> On 18/09/12 20:38, Jay Lozier wrote: >>> I suspect most users do not use much outside the common core features >>> of any office suite (LO, AOO, MSO, etc) >>> >> You suspect correctly. In any organisation, home use etc, the usual >> statistic is that 80% of users only use 20% of the functionality.... >> (I'm a retired Systems Accountant and have seen that more or less in >> most places I've worked, from a 2-man advertising agency to a couple >> of large quoted companies...and MOST places don't use VBA or Macros at >> all, which is the usual excuse for keeping MS and not moving to OO/LO...) >> >Gordon, > >+1 > >Most features one needs have been include in office suites since the >some time in the 90's. I can not think of a feature that I want see >implemented that is not already implemented. I can remember when spell >checking was the user looking up the word in a dead tree dictionary. So >the problem with commercial suites is how to get users to buy a new >version when the current version is probably overkill. > >My observations on macros are: > >1. most people do not know any programming and do not wish to learn any >programming. More accurately, they will not learn any programming. Thus >they will never write their own macro and will only use macros provided, >if any. Since the macros they use are canned, they would only notice >differences in "look and feel" not in the actual code and would only >care that the macro worked. > >2. those who can write macros are mostly not professional programmers >but users who probably learned programming elsewhere. Many engineers and >scientists probably fall into this category, they learned programming in >college (my case Fortran and Pascal). Often, their macros were written >for their purposes not because of some perceived business requirement. > >3. the professional programmers who write macros probably know several >languages so they should be able to learn another. Unless they are >selling commercial products, they could be suite agnostic, e.g. they >only want to know what the suite is (API's) and its macro language(s). I >believe LO supports several different languages for scripting - I saw >Python and JavaScript listed. > >My guess the group that complains the most about switching because of >macros would be the second group because they only know a few languages >at most (VBA and what they languages they learned as an undergraduate) >and do not want to learn another since their primary function is not >programming. > >When I was writing macros for MSO, I was firmly in the second category >but I have migrated to a situation closer to the third category. > >Because macros are a potential malware vector, I believe macro execution >requires more user interaction before a foreign macro will execute. >Thus, I would consider other ways to implement macro functionality if I >needed one for a large number of people in most situations. > >-- >Jay Lozier >[email protected] > > >-- >For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] >Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ >Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette >List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ >All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted > > > > -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
