When it comes to git I blame the lack of simple visual interface. All the GUIs I have seen are either horribly designed and unintuitive (often because they just duplicate git's syntax), or are unnecessarily complex and could do with a basic/advanced split UI.
For most document versioning and redlining needs, only the basic concepts are needed and correspond to common concepts: new document (init), save document (eh... commit? push?), save as (branch), open for editing (clone?), open for read-only (fetch?), and compare to other document (diff). Tracking and merging changes should be separate from those overall document actions, but are similarly congruent with git concepts. Again, the problem is presentation.
I want to jump on the hate bandwagon for MS Word, but in all honesty as long as you stay clear of "the cloud" and deal with documents locally and/or via email, it does all of these things quite well visually. It's fairly intuitive in its track changes interface. Virtually all of the complaints about numbering and formatting and pagination are due to user error -- which admittedly is often because of UI obscurity. The main thing missing is better and more visible built-in version control, but MS had SharePoint already queued up for that purpose so it makes business sense to try vendor lock in and upsell on that.
My only real pain points with Word are the severely limited reference manager, dismal attempts at a templating engine, and the crippled mail merge functionality. All of these can be scripted away or fixed with shady extensions, at the cost of IT freaking out about "dangerous macros".
Word 365 on the other hand... burn it in the fires of the hells from which it spawned.
Is Word the biggest mistake of computing ever? I get it, in 1980 when you are trying to get adoption of your obscure machine, it helps to emulate what is de vogue in the real world.
But now it's 2021, and there is zero reason anymore for anyone to "layout a letter" or similar nonsense like that. Computers are everywhere and the key to efficient processes, but we are stuck using them to make facsimiles of the World circa 1980.
I'm with you, but today most sr. attorneys & judges still print out all emails/documents to then redline. the legal field will need another 10-20 years before the foundation is present to even discuss removing Word.
jimmygrapes|4 years ago
For most document versioning and redlining needs, only the basic concepts are needed and correspond to common concepts: new document (init), save document (eh... commit? push?), save as (branch), open for editing (clone?), open for read-only (fetch?), and compare to other document (diff). Tracking and merging changes should be separate from those overall document actions, but are similarly congruent with git concepts. Again, the problem is presentation.
I want to jump on the hate bandwagon for MS Word, but in all honesty as long as you stay clear of "the cloud" and deal with documents locally and/or via email, it does all of these things quite well visually. It's fairly intuitive in its track changes interface. Virtually all of the complaints about numbering and formatting and pagination are due to user error -- which admittedly is often because of UI obscurity. The main thing missing is better and more visible built-in version control, but MS had SharePoint already queued up for that purpose so it makes business sense to try vendor lock in and upsell on that.
My only real pain points with Word are the severely limited reference manager, dismal attempts at a templating engine, and the crippled mail merge functionality. All of these can be scripted away or fixed with shady extensions, at the cost of IT freaking out about "dangerous macros".
Word 365 on the other hand... burn it in the fires of the hells from which it spawned.
stefan_|4 years ago
But now it's 2021, and there is zero reason anymore for anyone to "layout a letter" or similar nonsense like that. Computers are everywhere and the key to efficient processes, but we are stuck using them to make facsimiles of the World circa 1980.
Shicholas|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
pseingatl|4 years ago