[OS:N:] Developing for developers and users

[Jay Scherrer]

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List,
What iss all this talk about? 
- From what I understand, is excel is only a csv file (comma seperated version 
text file). The only thing that Ms's excel does is add eye candy. That is 
where Microsoft has a niche, as in presentation of data and or desktop.
his what we have to understand. Microsoft is really good at taking raw data 
and making it easier to comprehend via presentation. It wasn't until Unix 
started to perfect the X windowing driver that we started to beable to 
compete visually with Microsoft. But that's not to say that Linux/Unix didn't 
have the backend (processing power) for applications.   
I use Perl all the time to create my csv text files and load them into 
OpenOffice. At my last interview I was asked if could use excel. In which I 
redily replied "Oh my yes, and I can even convert excel files into a more 
useable data format such as MySQL".

Jay 

On Thursday 26 August 2004 07:09 am, Charles MacDonald wrote:
> Bill Kendrick said:
>  > On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 09:39:58AM -0400, Charles MacDonald wrote:
>  >> MS office is not the best tool for what it is used for.
>  >
>  > I always joked that MS should take Excel, remove all of the math and
>  > charting features out of it, and sell it as a completely new product:
>  > "MS Table."  99% of the time I see an Excel spreadsheet, it's used
>  > simply as a kludge to cobble together data into columns and rows.  Half
>  > the time, it's not even in a form that's easily sortable.  *sigh*
>
> Not wanting to pick on a monopoly, but I recall an interesting
> conversation with a developer who was doing spreadsheet stuff at OLS
> 2003. He said he was tempted to make his product have TWO versions of
> some of the math stuff.  The academically Correct version and a MS
> compatibility mode with the bugs he had observed in the behavior of Excel.
>
> I agree that using Excel as a mini-db application is problematic.  Even
> my wife has rejected my old database of my record albums, and has listed
> our CD's in Excel, with one title of songs she likes per column and one
> CD per row. - with the Row numbers corresponding to the position of the
> CD in the Pioneer 300 Cd player.
>
> I am not suggesting that developers should go out on a limb and create
> artificial interfaces out of the blue, just saying that the MS
> interfaces although often designed with a good deal of human factors
> research are not always the best for user needs.
>
> Perhaps OSS needs to start thinking about user forums where interface
> issues get looked at with real non-technical users.  perhaps a spiffy
> data-management program is more important than a spreadsheet?
>
> (in fairness, the second spreadsheet to reach popular sales -Lotus 123-
> was advertised as a database management tool.  with only 64K to play
> with, Visi-Calc on the Apple ][ really did not have the space to ponder
> such an application.)
>
> --
> Charles MacDonald  Stittsville Ontario
>   cmacd at achilles.net      Just Beyond the Fringe
>             http://home.achilles.net/~cmacd/
> No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.
>
>
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