[mdlug] What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

[Clinton V. Weiss]

On Nov 17, 2007 3:27 PM, Brian Hurley <brian at detroitindustrial.org> wrote:
> While software bloat is arguably bad* its definitely not restricted to MS
> alone. I've read more than one benchmark showing that OO is much worse at
> both speed and memory use than even the currently uber bloated MS Office.
> Here's one example: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=480
>

I have to agree with this 100%.  Last May I wrote a complex
spreadsheet generated in JExcelAPI (Java) that was pure formulas -
hundreds to thousands of them required per sheet.  There would be a
display sheet that would present the data in a user friendly format
(all formulas), a hidden sheet with the raw data (no formulas), and
another hidden sheet that processed the data into groups (all
formulas).  One of the generated sheets consisted of 1500 rows and 12
columns with about 30,000 complex formulas to present that data.

Keep in mind JExcelAPI does not pre-calculate formulas.  Therefore
whenever the spreadsheet is opened for the first time all formulas are
calculated.

Excel would open the spreadsheet and calculate all formulas in just
shy of 10 seconds, meanwhile displaying a progress meter such that it
was obvious to the user that it was "working."  OpenOffice, however,
would open with a solid white screen.  After several seconds a
progress meter would somewhat display near the bottom and the user
could see OO crawling through the formulas.  Finally, after about 60
seconds, OO would finish and the rest of the screen would catch up.

I'm a huge fan of open source, however, I'm also a huge fan of using
the right tool for the right job.  OpenOffice, as much as they'd like
to claim, is not yet the right tool for heavy spreadsheet usage.
OpenOffice is *NOT* Excel.

Clinton

-- 
Clinton V. Weiss
cvweiss at gmail.com