Good (and Free) PC Programs

[Asher]

Originally posted by Hot Mustard
Geez, Asher - I hope you don't wonder why you get under everyone's skin. Attitude like that is going to sink you IRL, fast - I'm curious to see what you're like in 3-5 years or so.

Just b/c someone can't be bothered to look up specific examples to counter your ridiculous claim of "better categorically", doesn't mean you're right. It also doesn't mean they're right, and ultimately, it DOESN'T MATTER.

Can't you accept that some people may have different preferences and usage needs than your own?

If I say it's better categorically it's simple to provide a single example of a feature that's better.

FWIW, newsforge/slashdot reviews really don't count for the bits they're printed with. I take it you understand that Newsforge is owned by, and that reviewer is paid by, the Open Source Development Network?

I don't know of a single feature OOWriter has that MS Word doesn't, and I could list a whole whack of ones that Word has, that I use frequently, that OOWriter doesn't have.

I would like a concrete example of a feature/implementation that's preferred in OOwriter over Word. It's not acceptable to argue on the quality of the software and then resort to arguments outside of that scope (eg, cost).

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Asher
Just wanted to make sure you had nothing to back it up. That's all.

You said "categorically better". You're the one doing the backing up here, and I don't mean with evidence. You're trying to renege from your previously unsupportable statement and narrow it to apply only to "software examples".

Or would you have us believe that MS leads in pricing too?

As for backing up my statements, you'd need to first address any of my points before claiming to have refuted any of them. All you've done is ask a question to try to change the subject.

Why would I want to back up something I hadn't claimed? I said there are preferencial categories which can swing either way, are you arguing that there are no preferencial categories that a user might choose OO over MS for? Because if you want to argue with me about whether I prefer OO or MS, you're welcome to.

I didn't say there are software categories that favor OO. And I didn't say there weren't either. I simply am not going to waste the time to familiarize myself with MS Office, and the portions of OO that I don't use, well enough to determine what exactly may or may not be better/worse about it.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
BTW, I bookmarked that planet place.

Cheers Slow, I was afraid it had got lost in the office crossfire.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Aeson
You said "categorically better". You're the one doing the backing up here, and I don't mean with evidence. You're trying to renege from your previously unsupportable statement and narrow it to apply only to "software examples".

I'm describing the software. If I said MS Office is categorically better, then if it's not it should be easy to find an example where OOWriter is better.

Obviously, OOWriter is free and MS Office is only free if your school is part of the MSDN AA or if your work uses MS Office. That's a given, so let's get off it and focus on the meat of the issue.

Why would I want to back up something I hadn't claimed? I said there are preferencial categories which can swing either way, are you arguing that there are no preferencial categories that a user might choose OO over MS for? Because if you want to argue with me about whether I prefer OO or MS, you're welcome to.

This is a waste of time and effort on your half. Everything is preferential, so why argue anything?

My point is your preference likely has absolutely nothing to do with the software's quality and design (because OO is nightmarishly ugly and unintuitive from its source code to its interface). It has to do with "it works" and "it's free". That's fine to think that but it really has nothing to do with the quality of the product, which is what I want to discuss.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Asher
(because OO is nightmarishly ugly and unintuitive from its source code to its interface)

To you perhaps. With few exceptions, anything new and unfamiliar is deemed unfriendly. I have to wonder what a pair of complete office virgins, one using each solution, would determine after a month of use. I won't pretend to know the answer - but I strongly suspect you will.

[SlowwHand]

Ok, you're beginning to piss me off, boys.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Hot Mustard
To you perhaps. With few exceptions, anything new and unfamiliar is deemed unfriendly. I have to wonder what a pair of complete office virgins, one using each solution, would determine after a month of use. I won't pretend to know the answer - but I strongly suspect you will.

It was actually an assignment in university for my Human-Computer Interfaces class to compare and contrast OO.org vs MS Office 2003...

And OO.org violates countless conventions of solid interface design (by far the #1 violation was consistency).

For instance, how does one do a Word Count in OO 1.0? This is a very common, basic functionality.

In Word, this defaults to always display in the status bar but is also easily accessible by menus. How do you get it in OO 1.0?

[KrazyHorse]

OpenOffice sucks.

Even the Linux geeks in the physics department admit it.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm describing the software. If I said MS Office is categorically better, then if it's not it should be easy to find an example where OOWriter is better.

Price, as I explained to you already. You don't want price to factor in, I get that. But you didn't qualify your initial statement that way. You said MS was categorically better. You gave no qualifications to that statement.

Of course you could have just said, "what I meant was..." and then refined the qualification. Or even just let my little comment pass. Either of those options are what a reasonable person would do. You seem to be trying, but instead of actually admitting the qualification wasn't there in the first place, you continually try to claim it was always present. If only you could go back in time and change what was actually said...

Obviously, OOWriter is free and MS Office is only free if your school is part of the MSDN AA or if your work uses MS Office. That's a given, so let's get off it and focus on the meat of the issue.

I'm glad you agree that my statement was true. That, in the category of price, OO has an edge on MS Office.

That's not the issue of our discussion though. We're talking about your inability to properly qualify your statements, your misrepresentation of statements I've made, and your use of unsupported conjecture to make positive claims about subjects which you have little to no understanding of.

This is a waste of time and effort on your half. Everything is preferential, so why argue anything?

The reason for my initial post was because I felt like having a discussion of no real importance or impact, and knew you would be up for the task. That I could state the patently obvious truth, with a little joke about MS, and then you would try to argue with me.

It's not a waste of time or effort on my part. I quite enjoy this. But thanks for looking out for my interests in this regard.

My point is your preference likely has absolutely nothing to do with the software's quality and design (because OO is nightmarishly ugly and unintuitive from its source code to its interface).

If you want to know what my preferences are, you could ask. Assuming my preference has nothing to do with interface design is about as stupid a guess as you could make given that I've said they work basically indistinguishable for me. If the OO interface was more difficult for me to use, that would likely be a major distinction. I don't know if the interface is difficult for you to use, maybe I'm just superhuman and can somehow operate OO in-spite of the design flaws you say are there in the interface, without noticing them or having them impact my efficiency?

As for MS Office's source code, I haven't been privy to that... so I could only guess as to how the two compare on that regard. Though thanks for mentioning it, as it does provide another example as to a category where OO has an edge on MS, and that is the category of open source. This is not to suggest there aren't advantages to using software that isn't open source, certainly there are security advantages. Just that for some users, open source software allows them to modify the code base as they see fit, and that can be seen as an advantage in their eyes.

It has to do with "it works" and "it's free". That's fine to think that but it really has nothing to do with the quality of the product, which is what I want to discuss.

I mentioned I have a copy of MS Office already. So "it's free" to me in that I could use it without paying for it. Yet I chose not to. So obviously "it's free" is not the reason for my preference. (Learn to read, it helps!)

As for "it works", that is a misrepresentation of what I have already said. I would have hoped that having already made a statement in that regard would have saved you the trouble of floundering around with your crystal ball to come up with a guess as to what my position on that matter may be. But since you seem to have missed it, I will repeat myself to hopefully help you avoid such unnecessary expenditures of your time in the future. I said, "For what I use(d) them for, they're basically indistinguishable in how they perform."

Can you see the difference between "it works" and that? On one hand we have your oversimplification, cutting out important qualification so as to misrepresent the position so you can make some irrellevent point, and on the other we have what was actually said.

For instance, how does one do a Word Count in OO 1.0? This is a very common, basic functionality.

I've never used OOWriter before. Use OO 2.0 myself. So couldn't tell you how 1.0 would do it (or not). As for in 2.0, go to Tools->Word Count. (Alt-T-W) That took me two seconds to figure out. There may be other ways to go around it as well, but I'm not here to teach you how to run the software.

Perhaps if you wish to discuss the merits of OO vs MS Office, you would have more relevent examples to give us if you were refering to the more recent version of OO? (Most recent version of MS Office too, just in case you're using some previous version of it.)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Aeson
I'm glad you agree that my statement was true. That, in the category of price, OO has an edge on MS Office.

That's not the issue of our discussion though. We're talking about your inability to properly qualify your statements, your misrepresentation of statements I've made, and your use of unsupported conjecture to make positive claims about subjects which you have little to no understanding of.

Actually, what we're talking about is your inability to use common sense to grasp the scope of the argument in context. It's absolutely obvious OpenOffice holds a price advantage. No one would ever, ever, say free software is not an advantage. Thus, it's reasonable to discard that topic in a discussion with, say, a software engineer. Please use better judgement in the future to grasp what is being said.

I've never used OOWriter before. Use OO 2.0 myself. So couldn't tell you how 1.0 would do it (or not). As for in 2.0, go to Tools->Word Count. (Alt-T-W) That took me two seconds to figure out. There may be other ways to go around it as well, but I'm not here to teach you how to run the software.

I specified 1.0 because 1.0 didn't have a word count feature. OpenOffice, when you actually look at its history, predates MS Office in development. It was designed by a bunch of pathetically paid East German geeks and its interface, organization, and general utility reflects that.

OpenOffice is lacking in lots of features that are demanded in a true word processor. Academics hate it because it has no real referencing/index mode. Users hate it because it's REALLY slow and pretty ugly. Newbies hate it because the inconsistent, unintuitive interface drives them mad.

Some people grow attached to hideous things, like Pugs, and that's their problem. But when, on a software level, OpenOffice can't hold a candle to anything offered in MS Office, it's simple to say it wins categorically. Again, simple common sense on your behalf could figure this out by two simple observations:
1) Everyone will agree free > paid, so that's clearly not what's being said
2) The person saying it is a software engineer

See?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Why are MS programs (save those lucky individuals granted gratis copies or pirating) even being discussed given the nature of the OP namely "Good (and Free) PC Programs"?

[Asher]

Because a comparison was made.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

An inapt comparison considering it (Open Office) isn't compared to another freeware program.

[SlowwHand]

Even more inapt considering a thread was made for them.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Asher
Actually, what we're talking about is your inability to use common sense to grasp the scope of the argument in context. It's absolutely obvious OpenOffice holds a price advantage. No one would ever, ever, say free software is not an advantage. Thus, it's reasonable to discard that topic in a discussion with, say, a software engineer. Please use better judgement in the future to grasp what is being said.

Yet when I made a statement to that effect, you asked a question, admittedly to see if I could back up my statements. You said I could not back it up. So you were refuting what you are now calling a given.

I specified 1.0 because 1.0 didn't have a word count feature.

How convenient. Just pick and choose which versions to find examples of lacking features. Nevermind that the feature you used as an example has already been implemented in more current versions.

I'm sure there are plenty of examples where OO 2.0 lags behind MS Office. Is it really so hard for you to back up your statements that MS Office is categorically better than OO, that you have to fish around in previous versions of OO to come up with your examples?

OpenOffice, when you actually look at its history, predates MS Office in development. It was designed by a bunch of pathetically paid East German geeks and its interface, organization, and general utility reflects that.

OpenOffice is lacking in lots of features that are demanded in a true word processor. Academics hate it because it has no real referencing/index mode. Users hate it because it's REALLY slow and pretty ugly. Newbies hate it because the inconsistent, unintuitive interface drives them mad.

Thanks for the info.

Some people grow attached to hideous things, like Pugs, and that's their problem.

I used MS Office for quite a while before deciding to change to OO. I'm not attached to OO at all. The moment something that overall pleases me better shows up, I'd switch.

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm almost completely defunct of sentimental attachment to any of my possessions. I don't pretend you should know that, but it's hillarious you pretend to know better than that and try to refute it.

But when, on a software level, OpenOffice can't hold a candle to anything offered in MS Office, it's simple to say it wins categorically.

Unless you're in a thread about "Good (and Free) PC Programs". Then you might want to examing the context a little bit and qualify your statements in regards to price. Although, properly qualifying your statements is a good practice regardless of context.

I know it's difficult, since proper qualification would mean you actually have to think about what you're saying, and can't resort to absurd hyperbolic blanket statements so easily... but the qualification factors into what makes a statement technically true or not.

1) Everyone will agree free > paid, so that's clearly not what's being said

Except you.

Even though I know you didn't meant to disagree with it of course, you still tried to refute it.

2) The person saying it is a software engineer

Or the person saying it is incapable of properly qualifying their statements. Or they are incapable of resisting arguing against things admited as correct. Or their background isn't of interest to me.

If you want to remember the background of every poster here, somehow infer their mindset, or rather guess at it as seems your wont, feel free. I just want to discuss what you've actually said. Not read your mind. If you meant that MS Office is better than OO in every regard other than price, say that. If you say it's better in every regard without exception, such as the term categorically implies, it should be read as such. Because that's what the term actually means. And that's what you said no matter how much you try to twist this.