Re: OT: Unless F1 teams use Radeon cards under Ubuntu

On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:11:07 +0100, Alister <Someone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

<snip>
There are of course portable ways around Excel, but to do that, my
wife's company, for instance, would have to restructure/convert
thousands of documents, retrain hundreds of workers to use the new
stuff and neither Bill nor the open source crowd will pay for that..
so it won't happen in a hurry. OO guys shoudl try and get VBA working,
that would give them a good boost. Dunno why they don't, perhaps there
may be copyright issues with MS holding just about everything with VB
in it, despite abandoning it in it's classic form.

this sounds like the company are using the wrong application for the
task (Spread *** instead of database).

LOL, um... A database is a storage, a spread*** is used as a front
end to the databases.
When you have to make lots of data specific presentations, documents,
circulars, job aids, etc, you do need a simple to use front end which
allows *everyone* access to the databases.
As i've said, once a company has set up to use MS, they are stuck with
that format until some compelling reason makes them throw all that out
the window and use another maker's application. That can be at quite
substantial cost, so that reason would need to be sound.
That compelling reason is simply not there yet. Excel works well, MS
word works ok, though i hate it, others love it. Both can produce
portable enough formats, so the data can be sent to other parties on
different platforms. I'm guessing they will never cater for open
source applications though, as it would be against their interest.
Then again, maybe it wouldn't be.. but that's another argument all
together.

it is a common practice because people don't seem to be able to design
database systems to be easy & I cant see the situation changing any time
soon, although this is exactly why an open standard for file formats is req!

OO copes with al the sheets I have with Macros, but I am sure there are
some that don't

Those won't be VBA macros or very, very basic ones.. but not sure any
would run. My copy of OO.Calc( Ver 2.4.1) usually bails on the first
line of any of my VBA modules i tried. Suppose i could go back 20
years and start doing compiler directives to satisfy both platforms,
but nah.. :)
If i ever get the time i'll have a look what's really happening. It
seems that OO knows about the VBA code and even puts an attribute into
the code, but..... it simply won't run the simplest thing. Having just
tried again, it bails on a "private type", which is a structure in the
VB language. <shrug> One day..

What happens when Microsoft Update or patch Office? either newer
versions wont work with the old files or the old one one work with new docs

That can happen to any software.
Make no mistake, if tomorrow OO developers find that they need to
change their data structures, they will not keep the code compatible
to today's format forever. It would be silly to do so, just adding
bloat year by year. With Word 2003, i can still open Word 6 documents.
I could even open Wordperfect docs (5 and 6), but that won't be
forever either. Sooner or later support must be dropped for outdated
stuff.
Of course for the above mentioned reason, it would be silly to keep
any document with any software in an outdated format for too long.

How many times do these macros need modifying or re-writing to cope?

So far zero times for that reason, although i've only been helping out
with VBA for 2-3 years. Usually the company will come up with some
stupid idea, which means going back into the finished code and rewrite
half of it to implement, so on that note i say keep MS and sack the
bloody companies.

When I first started I found having to switch to root to perform admin a
right PITA, now I cringe every time i see Doze let me make (potentially)
system killing changes without a 2nd thought.

So don't do it without a second thought. :)
Personally, i managed to work through DOS3 to 6, just fine. It had
nothing that would save me from my stupidity. If i wanted to delete
config.sys or format C, no probs i could do all that without being
nagged too much, if at all. XP will restore any system files i delete
at the next boot and won't let me format C. What a ***.
I find XP already too limiting in what i can do with my own damn
system. I know that this is the price we pay for looking after the
idiots, but still.. it's like having a car refusing to turn right,
because there is a thing that looks like the ocean there. *** the
ocean, it is my car, i'm driving and i want to drive into it !!

Personally I do not like the way all Doze configuration info is stored
in 1 Binary file (the registry), on a number of occasions I have had
this corrupted so bad that the only way to recover is with a full reload.
I have recovered my Linux box ( & Yes it was my tweaking that broke it)
by booting form a live CD & correcting or replacing 1 or 2 text config files

Actually, it is backed up. Had you known that, you could have saved
some time. :) But i do agree, it sucks when it happens and sometimes
it can get FUBAR.. <touch wood> only once and that was not the main
PC.
The binary registry itself was not a bad idea though. It is far
quicker to run through a binary tree than a text file, but i think
they should not have allowed developers to abuse it.

Anyway, there are a few things to hate MS for with a vengeance, but a
lot of the issues brought up are blown out of proportions, rivaled
only by the swine flu scare. Pound for pound, MS applications do the
job and do it ok. Not outstanding, but ok. There are some problems,
bad things, good things. For each person and company they have to
assess their own reasons and needs to owning one or another and that's
basically what is comes down to.

--

Regards, Frank
.

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