__/ [ B Gruff ] on Thursday 04 January 2007 23:11 \__
> On Thursday 04 January 2007 22:15 Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:08:44 -0600, Linonut wrote:
>>
>>> After takin' a swig o' grog, Roy Schestowitz belched out this bit o'
>>> wisdom:
>>>
>>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>>>| This is not a specification;
>>>>| this is a DNA sequence. For example, take this part of the
>>>>| OOXML "Standard":
>>>>|
>>>>| 2.15.3.6 autoSpaceLikeWord95 (Emulate Word 95 Full-Width
>>>>| Character Spacing)
>>>>|
>>>>| This element specifies that applications shall emulate the
>>>>| behavior of a previously existing word processing application
>>>>| (Microsoft Word 95) when determining the spacing between full-width
>>>>| East Asian characters in a document's content.
>>>> `----
>>>
>>> Gotta admire MS's slickness. How to write an anti-specificiation.
>>
>> How, pray tell, do you plan to convert Word 95 documents to ODF without
>> such support?
>
> I don't even understand the question, Erik.
>
> - How are Word 95 documents being converted to ODF now?
>
> - Why is Word 95 being "written into" the specification of a new standard?
> .... let me put that another way - if the MS XML "standard" is calling up a
> "Word 95 specification", where does one find that "Word 95 specification"?
> Is it in an Appendix to the MS XML "specification"?
A format is not a lesson in history. There should be a standard that's
followed and when it's enhanced, as agreed by an industrial panel, it should
be backward compatible (and elegantly so). You don't see RSS 2.0 specifying
all sorts of nitty-gritty details about how to tweak things in order to
remain consistent and backward-compatible with 1.0 (or 0.9.2). This only
comes to show that Microsoft's code evolution is utterly flawed. It's
tweaks-rich, ad hoc, slapped together and glued where holes emerge. That's
not how you built a wall... nor how you specify a format that can be
followed.
Is Open XML a one way specification for most people?
,----[ Quote ]
| Who will implement Open XML correctly and fully? Maybe Microsoft.
| Why? Since it is essentially a dump into XML of all the data
| needed for all the functionality of their Office products and
| since those products are proprietary, only they will understand
| any nuances that go beyond the spec. The spec may illuminate
| some of the mistakes that have been made and are now being
| written into a so called standard for all to have to implement,
| but I'm guessing there might be a few other shades of meaning
| that will not be clear. Fully and correctly implementing Open
| XML will require the cloning of a large portion of Microsoft's
| product. Best of luck doing that, especially since they have
| over a decade head start. Also, since they have avoided using
| industry standards like SVG and MathML, you'll have to
| reimplement Microsoft's flavor of many things. You had
| better start now. So therefore I conclude that while Microsoft
| may end up supporting most of Open XML (and we'll have to
| see the final products to see how much and how correctly),
| other products will likely only end up supporting a subset.
`----
http://sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1145
--
~~ Best wishes for the new year!
Roy S. Schestowitz \ Switch to GNU/Linux. Visit
http://www.getgnulinux.org/
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Swap: 1036184k total, 241668k used, 794516k free, 76976k cached
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
|
|
