About Microsoft saying they will stop selling Office
-
In a discussion on another website, not programming, but still technical, someone with supposedly 15+ years of developing experience has said that MS should continue selling office after removing XML support because it's easy to do, all that's really needed is fix open/save dialogues. I counteracted because I just don't think it's as simple as that, you will also need to handle drag and drop, command line, any other "accidental" way it can be opened, regression testing, and in a product the size of the Microsoft word no change is easy, no matter how trivial it might seem. Of course the other person said it's probably handled by a few controls so it still should be easy to do. Everyone seemed to side with the other guy, so I dropped the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time, we'd never agree with each other. Still for fun afternoon discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
On a scale of 0 - 5, 0 being easy and 5 being impossible. I will place it around 2.5
modified on Friday, August 21, 2009 1:35 PM
-
In a discussion on another website, not programming, but still technical, someone with supposedly 15+ years of developing experience has said that MS should continue selling office after removing XML support because it's easy to do, all that's really needed is fix open/save dialogues. I counteracted because I just don't think it's as simple as that, you will also need to handle drag and drop, command line, any other "accidental" way it can be opened, regression testing, and in a product the size of the Microsoft word no change is easy, no matter how trivial it might seem. Of course the other person said it's probably handled by a few controls so it still should be easy to do. Everyone seemed to side with the other guy, so I dropped the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time, we'd never agree with each other. Still for fun afternoon discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
Plus, what do they do about files stored in the current format? In regards to your other comments, I can't count the times I thought something would be trivial only to have it turn into something very complicated. Cuts the other way too, only not as often (just the other day, I braced myself for a morning of work only to solve the problem in about 30 seconds. On the other hand, I keep procrastinating a very minor project that my emotional side keeps whispering is easy, but I really know is extremely complicated and tedious.) (Why isn't anybody complaining about how lame this patent is anyway? It's bogus in the extreme. Unfortunately, this tells me that this is all about one judge's ego.)
-
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
On a scale of 0 - 5, 0 being easy and 5 being impossible. I will place it around 2.5
modified on Friday, August 21, 2009 1:35 PM
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I will place it around 2.5
Gee, that's being decisive. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
-
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I will place it around 2.5
Gee, that's being decisive. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
I was going to mention 2.518234107842 but that would have been too precise. Well it's not impossible for sure. It's not very easy either. It might be easy from a developer perspective but considering all the testing and documentation that needs to be removed I had to add little bit of hardness.
-
In a discussion on another website, not programming, but still technical, someone with supposedly 15+ years of developing experience has said that MS should continue selling office after removing XML support because it's easy to do, all that's really needed is fix open/save dialogues. I counteracted because I just don't think it's as simple as that, you will also need to handle drag and drop, command line, any other "accidental" way it can be opened, regression testing, and in a product the size of the Microsoft word no change is easy, no matter how trivial it might seem. Of course the other person said it's probably handled by a few controls so it still should be easy to do. Everyone seemed to side with the other guy, so I dropped the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time, we'd never agree with each other. Still for fun afternoon discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
From what I've read of this case (IANAL), I don't think it's all XML support that's the problem. This is why they've said they're not going after OpenOffice (although I'm sure there are other reasons for that). It's just the ability of Word to create pure XML docs based on a schema[^]. A feature that I haven't seen a lot of people use. We know they're good at creating SKUs, they seem to create new ones daily, so that won't be a problem. So, they create Word XML Edition to sell the existing Word product, and flip the switch to disable that feature (I'm sure a dev did it within a coffee of an exec asking if it was possible {Yes, "a coffee" is a unit of time. One that gets shorter as more is consumed.}) My evidence? The Express versions of VS, as well as the versions of Office out there, and the ability they either have (or planned to have, but never executed on) to enable people to turn on various functions by purchasing a new product key.
-------------- TTFN - Kent
-
Plus, what do they do about files stored in the current format? In regards to your other comments, I can't count the times I thought something would be trivial only to have it turn into something very complicated. Cuts the other way too, only not as often (just the other day, I braced myself for a morning of work only to solve the problem in about 30 seconds. On the other hand, I keep procrastinating a very minor project that my emotional side keeps whispering is easy, but I really know is extremely complicated and tedious.) (Why isn't anybody complaining about how lame this patent is anyway? It's bogus in the extreme. Unfortunately, this tells me that this is all about one judge's ego.)
Joe Woodbury wrote:
(Why isn't anybody complaining about how lame this patent is anyway? It's bogus in the extreme. Unfortunately, this tells me that this is all about one judge's ego.)
Because just about every software patent is lame? More to your point, that's why they did this trial in Texas, rather than Ontario (where the developer is) or Washington state, as they knew that court is very much in favour of software patents, and have a fairly lengthy history of being stupid about them[^]. Also, I think the injunction is just against selling Word, so existing files "shouldn't" be affected by the case.
-------------- TTFN - Kent
-
I was going to mention 2.518234107842 but that would have been too precise. Well it's not impossible for sure. It's not very easy either. It might be easy from a developer perspective but considering all the testing and documentation that needs to be removed I had to add little bit of hardness.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
ut considering all the testing and documentation
testing and documentation? Really? From Microsoft??? TLW
-
Joe Woodbury wrote:
(Why isn't anybody complaining about how lame this patent is anyway? It's bogus in the extreme. Unfortunately, this tells me that this is all about one judge's ego.)
Because just about every software patent is lame? More to your point, that's why they did this trial in Texas, rather than Ontario (where the developer is) or Washington state, as they knew that court is very much in favour of software patents, and have a fairly lengthy history of being stupid about them[^]. Also, I think the injunction is just against selling Word, so existing files "shouldn't" be affected by the case.
-------------- TTFN - Kent
-
In a discussion on another website, not programming, but still technical, someone with supposedly 15+ years of developing experience has said that MS should continue selling office after removing XML support because it's easy to do, all that's really needed is fix open/save dialogues. I counteracted because I just don't think it's as simple as that, you will also need to handle drag and drop, command line, any other "accidental" way it can be opened, regression testing, and in a product the size of the Microsoft word no change is easy, no matter how trivial it might seem. Of course the other person said it's probably handled by a few controls so it still should be easy to do. Everyone seemed to side with the other guy, so I dropped the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time, we'd never agree with each other. Still for fun afternoon discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
I use this thing called code-reuse. It is a radical concept but it does allow me to very easily disable features. Who knows how MS does it, they are relatively new at software development.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
-
In a discussion on another website, not programming, but still technical, someone with supposedly 15+ years of developing experience has said that MS should continue selling office after removing XML support because it's easy to do, all that's really needed is fix open/save dialogues. I counteracted because I just don't think it's as simple as that, you will also need to handle drag and drop, command line, any other "accidental" way it can be opened, regression testing, and in a product the size of the Microsoft word no change is easy, no matter how trivial it might seem. Of course the other person said it's probably handled by a few controls so it still should be easy to do. Everyone seemed to side with the other guy, so I dropped the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time, we'd never agree with each other. Still for fun afternoon discussion. Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
Do you guys think it would be realistic/easy/hard/impossible for MS to remove XML support from Word and put new product on the shelves in 60 days?
I suppose they still have the code for slightly older office products that don't use XML, so im sure they could continue work on the non-XML ones and improve them.
If everything was not true, would it be not true that everything is not true? So by saying everything is not true, you are automatically denying that everything is not true. Im so confused... FreeDOS - An open source modern MS-DOS/PC-DOS replacement.