Open source vs Microsoft vs public domain

[BartC]

I quite liked Win32/GDI (still do in fact).

Everything is a hundred times more complex than it needs to be, it's grossly
inconsistent, and takes ages to get things to work,

I could go on and on about it, but... I'll just say next time I have to use
Win32/GDI, I will just get it to provide (1) one style of basic top-level
window (2) one style of borderless child window (3) basic keyboard and mouse
messages. Everything else can be built on that, in a way that is quick,
simple, consistent, and that just works.

 

[Keith Thompson]

I seriously doubt you have created documents like those you described in
Microsoft Word. If you did, you would know first hand the countless
problems that Microsoft Word inflicts on any of it's users who are forced
to go through that adventure.

What the ^&%$% does this have to do with C?

 

[Chris H]

I seriously doubt you have created documents like those you described in
Microsoft Word. If you did, you would know first hand the countless
problems that Microsoft Word inflicts on any of it's users who are forced
to go through that adventure.

Perhaps I am just lucky

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Perhaps I am just lucky

I did a two day training course on "Word for long documents", at vast
expense to the university. After the course the features were just a
whirl, and I wasn't ready to write up. In the end I chose Open office.
However if you do lots of complex documents then of course you develop
secretarial skills. If you just do one thesis in four years, it's a
different experience.

 

[Walter Banks]

I seriously doubt you have created documents like those you described in
Microsoft Word. If you did, you would know first hand the countless
problems that Microsoft Word inflicts on any of it's users who are forced
to go through that adventure.

I have a publishing background. MS Word works quite well if you understand it from a publishing perspective.

Word lets you do things that make no publishing sense like Word Perfect did and that is when trouble starts. It is like some programming languages we know.

Regards,

w..

 

[Chris H]

In message <[email protected]

I did a two day training course on "Word for long documents", at vast
expense to the university. After the course the features were just a
whirl, and I wasn't ready to write up. In the end I chose Open office.
However if you do lots of complex documents then of course you develop
secretarial skills. If you just do one thesis in four years, it's a
different experience.

I am not in academia. I work in the real world

 

[Malcolm McLean]

I am not in academia. I work in the real world

I'd agree that, outside of PhDs, there aren't many situations in which
you can do as you like for four years on condition that you submit one
massive report at the end of it.

But the non-academic software was always a grief to me. Partly it was
because I ran all my scientific software under Unix whilst the rest of
the university ran on Windows. Programs are more or less compatible,
but not quite. If you load an Open Office document into Word it
shrinks all the images to postage stamp size, for example.