[mdlug] [OT] Perspective

[A. Kalten]

> I used to be a big WordPerfect fan. But now I just don't like using
> the WYSIWYG word processors anymore, they are too restrictive and
> they often don't do what you try to get them to do. Word is the worst
> at that, it always infuriates me when it thinks it knows what I want
> to do, despite me telling it to do something else. I now only use
> things like Word when I have to put something in that format. I use
> groff for most documents, and LaTeX for a few things groff can't do,
> all put into PDF format.

> Well, of course, Word is awful.  There are just a ton of issues that
> make anything beyond the most basic formatting a total headache.  OOo
> Writer is Somewhat better.  Abiword is much cleaner.  At the end of the
> day, though, I've never seen an office suite that actually impresses me.


This is all much too vague and general.  What, specifically, are
you, or were you, trying to accomplish?

The biggest mistake is to expect too much from a word processor.
They can only perform certain limited tasks.  They cannot accommodate
every possible whim of the human imagination.

Most often, the design of a document must conform to the
capabilities of a particular word processor and not vice
versa.  Thus, it becomes incumbent on the user to fully
understand what a given word processor can do and what it
cannot.  (How many casual users spend time studying the
voluminous software manuals?)

I also utilize accounting software and pay attention
to some of the relevant forums.  A lot of time people
will ask "How do I do this?" or "How do I do that?"
with a particular package.  The answer is that the
software was simply not designed to do those things
and the only solution is to find another tool.  These
people will then vilely curse the package for its
shortcomings and then leave, still hoping to somehow
find a way to "force" it to do their bidding.

Idiots.

Of course, the same applies to word processors and 
anything else.