RE: Simonyi Interview

[claribba <claribba@jps.net>]

Maybe WYSIWYG means different things to different people.  My
interpretation is that what shows on the screen is exactly what comes out
of the printer, something I've never been able to accomplish with DOS,
WINxx,WINx.x, or MAC or any of the compatible word processing apps,
although the old Wordstar came close.  If I want precision, I use my CP/M
machine for wp, dtp,  and graphics.  

I thought when I referenced the article, that someone would know the real
history of WYSIWYG as far as development, since I've never run across any
prior reference to Simonyi, which is not too surprising since I've
apparently been sleeping while BG took over the computer industry.  

Claire Macdonald


Kendall G. Clark wrote:
>All,
>
>What strikes me about the Simonyi article isn't his over-inflated ego
>(whoever endowed 2 academic chairs in their OWN name...hilarious!) or his
>mushy claims (if Intentional Programming is so great, where is it...?),
>but the fact that I've now pretty much isolated the person most
>responsible for one of the biggest pieces of programming crap in the
>history of personal computing: MS Word!
>
>I hate that program with a near religious fervor. It is bad at almost
>everything it does. Text-markup (a la SGML, html, TeX, LaTeX, XML, etc) is
>so far superior conceptually and practially to WYSIWYG that it makes me
>laugh.
>
>WYSIWYG does have one obviously good application: graphics programs. But
>MS has never been able to even get started competing with Adobe,
>Micrografx, or Corel in this area. The only good graphics program they've
>ever had was bought, lock, stock, and barrel from another company.
>
>At least now I have a face and name to put with my hatred of WYSIWYG
>document processing systems.
>
>Have you ever tried to prepare a 100 page report with MS Word?
>Cross-referenced? Footnotes? Endnotes? Multiple levels of indexing? It is
>pure \\dreck\\.
>
>Sorry for venting but I thought my head would explode if I didn't...
>
>Best,
>
>Kendall G. Clark
>
>
>