One of the programs that I like the least is Microsoft Word. What reminded me about this pent up frustration? John Dvorak's latest column in PC Magazine. While John is frequently off the mark or a bit over the top, I fully agree with him on this one: Word is beyond repair.
I have a few main issues with Word. First, it is way too helpful. It auto-formats stuff all over the place, even when I turn it off (maybe because the preferences are so badly worded and laid out sometimes I'm not sure what it is I'm even controlling). Second, the menus seem really confusing to me. I'm sure anything I'd say here could be refuted ("It makes sense to me!") so I won't bother opening myself up to criticism in this one; in any event, I have spent lots of time on several occasions locating something that ended up being in what seemed to be a random place to me. Third, sometimes it would be useful to make up a simple document and convert it to HTML (not that I do much web page work *wink wink*), but forget about doing it in Word. You get MSHTML code with 10 times as many markup codes as you need. (Does every paragraph really need an MS-specific font tag applied when the whole document is in the same font?) Lastly, I find it sometimes impossible to tweak a spacing, tab setting, bullet indent, etc, without wreaking havoc on the layout. I can't use Word without being frustrated, unless I'm doing something really simple (like using it as notepad with font formatting).
I think that this could all be attributed to one thing: feature bloat. I probably don't use 95% of Word's features, and I've done some non-trivial documents using Word. Yet here I am, slogging through endless menus, options and minutia to find the things I do want. Too bad the whole world uses Word, the whole world needs Word, and Microsoft can do absolutely whatever they want with Word and not risk losing any users. No one can afford to give up the precious Word. Oh, to be in that position...
Honestly, is Word really the result of "what customers want?" I'm sure at least one person wanted everything that's in Word, but did it really need to be included? Maybe that's a small part of my quest to write software that is usable and caters to general use by everyone, not throwing in every feature that everyone asks for (and carefully placing the ones that do get added).
Which should it be? Make everyone happy with their niche feature, or make everyone happy with software that you can actually readily comprehend and use?
I agree completely. When I reinstalled the OS on here, I didn't even put it on. I prefer TextEdit or Pico depending where I am (GUI or CLI).
Joe
personally i love word overall. although i use notepad far more often ;-)
i agree with you about the tabbing/bullets/auto-numbering - those things are so annoying and impossible to turn off. and when you need them, they dont seem to work.
probably the reason why i like word is because i am just use to it, i've been using it since forever, so im very comfortable with it. i dont use nearly all the features, but i can see that a lot of those features would be used in an office environment.
adding all the user requested features (as long as they are reasonable requests) is probably very wise to do. for every good feature MS adds, they may prevent 100's of people from using a different piece of software. and dont hear often the phrase "there is too many features" (ICQ excluded ;-))
Well said Kevin. Although Word has wonderful eye candy and the best "feel" of all WP's, it does suffer from feature bloat. That's what happens when the developers try to make their product do everything all their customers ever wished for. Sometimes the developer has to "just say no" to fringe features and concentrate on quality. Adding bloat for a few fringe users can alienate core customers.
I find that OpenOffice.org works just great, and seldom want for a feature. Even the little Rich Text program "Atlantis Nova" works great for 90+% of users.
Sonic: do you really think that Microsoft prevents someone from using another piece of software with a small niche feature? If it's such a niche, it's possible that no other software can do it either. ICQ definitely eventually suffered as a result of this mentality, and perhaps Word will eventually as well, especially as anti-MS sentiment continues to grow.
Bob: The fringe features themselves I don't think alienate anyone, it's how they are presented and executed. They alienate people by adding undesired complexity in the tasks that you do want to perform (long menus, hard to find options, etc). That's my take anyway--I wouldn't care if Word did everything in the world as long as I didn't have to slog through it to find the basics that I need.
here, here. Like Bob said, OpenOffice is a great Alternative. Though, its HTML coding I don't enjoy much, thats why I only use OpenOffice for word processing, and spread sheets.
MS Word's spelling and grammar tools are it's only saving graces. If not for said functions I would have abandoned it for Star and later Open Office quite some time ago.