Goodbye Cruel Word

theodp writes "The problem with Microsoft Word, writes the NYT's Virginia Heffernan, is that 'I always feel as if I'm taking an essay test.' Seeking to break free of the tyranny of Microsoft Word, Heffernan takes a look at Scrivener and the oh-so-retro WriteRoom, which she and others feel jibe better with the way writers think. 'The new writing programs encourage a writerly restart. You may even relearn the green-lighted alphabet, adjust your preference for long or short sentences, opt afresh for action over description. Renewal becomes heady: in WriteRoom's gloom is man's power to create something from nothing, to wrest form from formlessness. Let's just say it: It's biblical. And come on, ye writers, do you want to be a little Word drip writing 603 words in Palatino with regulation margins? Or do you want to be a Creator?'"

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[sethawoolley]

Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing.

Ack.

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

I can't watch "Juno" and read that article in the same day. My brain is really tired of text and dialogue as dense as a ten-year-old Christmas fruitcake.

Can anyone here translate into "concise" for me?

Re:Ack.

[wsanders]

- Writer likes Scrievener and WriteRoom
- Everybody hates Microsoft
- Who knows, maybe writer was drunk

Am I the only one ...

[Sepiraph]

... who misread the title as "Goodbye Cruel World". Thought it was going to be a /. suicidal note... God I NEED COFFEE!

Re:Since 1.0

[Yetihehe]

"It looks like you are being creative. Would you like to read slashdot instead?" And creative trance goes to hell...

I think I speak for everyone when I say...

[The Living Fractal]

...dude, where's my car?

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[Yaztromo]

I guess it's difficult to release a perfect Word since there are so many different types of users, yet Microsoft can't release five different versions simply for the sake of avoiding too much confusion.

Why not? They did it with Vista.

Yaz.

Re:LyX

[crush]

Ha ha. Sorry about that. Weird Yellow Stuff Is Warping Your Mind.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[Fred_A]

Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing.

See ? I'm not the only one who doesn't like ed !

What about...

[KCStein]

vi?

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[sethawoolley]

Amen, brother. That's why I like to use sed and shell echos, pipes, and redirects to do my word processing.

See ? I'm not the only one who doesn't like ed !

But I use sed only because the installed base is much higher compared to ed and document portability is critical in my line of work.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree 100% but please use LaTeX next time you post here.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[joss]

> Come to think of it, the TeX/Emacs vs Word and Unix vs Windows differences are very much like the difference between C/C++ and Lisp/Scheme.

You bastard, I tried to parse that repeatedly. What are you comparing to what ?

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[Tony Hoyle]

You think you've got problems.. I sign half my letters with :wq!

Re:A simple solution...

[Drinking Bleach]

> (And do NOT say "WINE" or I will laugh because that software is largely a bad joke.

You've got it backwards. MS Windows is the bad joke; Wine is more like nicorette, it wanes your addiction to said bad joke.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[T-Bone-T]

Does your boss have pointy hair?

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[kramulous]

I sign my /. posts with q! ["That comment missed the point and is generally unhelpful, forget it" self moderation]

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...LARGE BUST

[digitig]

Wouldn't work here. The missus knows that I prefer small.

The virtues of knowing what you are talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Word and notably Microsoft, is that they have attempted to make both Windows and their apps, notably Office, all things to all people with an interface that has not really changed at all over the course of its lifetime.

No... that is a FOSSie outlook. Lunix is a server. Lunix is a desktop. Lunix is a laptop. Lunix is for grandma, and for junior, and for professor. Lunix is both a floor wax AND a desert topping!

On the other hand, MS has always been focussed on one single area: enterprise users. MS Office is written to be used by companies with thousands of users, and to create documents which have thousands of pages. MS does not care so much about little Johnny writing his book report. MS does not care so much about mommy writing out her grocery list. MS does not care so much about you writing an MS-hating article for your school newspaper.

Yes, MS does put work into making sure Word can do those simpler tasks, which is why they keep creating Wizards to assist in auto-creating documents. But the application and tools themselves are focused on helping people who know how the program works, and understand how to get it to do what they want. It's not made for neubs, which is why knowing MS Office is actually a job skill.

If you want something simple or approachable, try MS Works, or Open Office, or all the other third-tier document applications. Once you are ready to step up into a professional-level application, MS Office will be waiting for you.

Blech

[Orp]

If the summary was written using the features of this software, I want nothing to do with it.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[naoursla]

What an unfortunate signature to have. I highly recommend staying away from vi. Perhaps MS Word would suit you well.

Re:The best tools are free.

[digitig]

The same could be said for the GIMP, Blender and Gnome/KDE interfaces. Good thing slashdot is as hard on open source giffaws like that as their closed-source counterparts.

I've not used the GIMP or Blender, and I've never wanted to change the KDE interface, so contrary to /. spirit I'll any leave criticism of those to people who know what they're talking about.

Re:The best tools stay out of the way...

[peterpi]

I've lost so many emails / msn conversations / etc by pressing Esc twice. The ones that remain are littered with "jkjkjkjkjk" when I can't see where the cursor is.