[mdlug] What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

[Dave Arbogast]

Guys,

Those with gray hair like me, do you remember what happened back when M$ 
released Excel version 4 for the Mac OS and they wanted EVERYONE to 
upgrade from Excel 3 ???   Those that did not upgrade but still 
exchanged files between 2 computers - one with Excel 3, the other with 
Excel 4, suffered catastrophic corruption of the hard drive. This 
appeared to the user like the HD had gone belly up.  I invested many 
hours to recover the data from such hard drives. It is still the same 
company and the developers from then (circa 1990) are likely development 
managers now for the next batch of Excel developers.

-dave

Michael Corral wrote:

>2007-11-17, Monsieur Clinton V. Weiss a ecrit:
>  
>
>>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.
>>>      
>>>
>>I have to agree with this 100%.  Last May I wrote a complex
>>spreadsheet generated in JExcelAPI (Java) that was pure formulas -
>>    
>>
>
>o_O
>
>  
>
>>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.
>>    
>>
>
>So let me get this right. You're complaining that OpenOffice was not
>as robust as Excel in opening a complex *Excel* spreadsheet with tons
>of embedded *Excel* formulas, and this for a spreadsheet that was
>created with a library (JExcelApi) that was designed to "read, write
>and modify Excel spreadsheets" (<http://jexcelapi.sourceforge.net/>)?
>All I can say is: wow.
>
>  
>
>>I'm a huge fan of open source, however, I'm also a huge fan of using
>>the right tool for the right job.
>>    
>>
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Then why didn't you use a library that creates *OpenOffice* spreadsheets
>instead of one that creates *Excel* spreadsheets?? That would have been
>the proper way to use OpenOffice. Your complaint would be like someone
>complaining that Excel doesn't open QuattroPro spreadsheets as fast as
>QuattroPro does.
>
>  
>
>>OpenOffice, as much as they'd like
>>to claim, is not yet the right tool for heavy spreadsheet usage.
>>    
>>
>
>Sure it is. And many people use it for that every day. You just weren't
>using it properly. That's your fault, not OpenOffice's.
>
>  
>
>>OpenOffice is *NOT* Excel.
>>    
>>
>
>Exactly. :) And that's a good thing. I sure wouldn't want OpenOffice
>to calculate 65535 as 100000, as Excel 2007 does:
><http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/09/24/2339203.shtml>
>Better hope your Excel formulas don't calculate that. :p
>
>Michael
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>  
>
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