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NO. All the interesting desktop software has NOT already been written. Short example: there aren't many - if any - desktop word processing software with word o

NO. All the interesting desktop software has NOT already been written. Short example: there aren't many - if any - desktop word processing software with word or phrase completion, so that's one thing you could still do and sell if you wanted to. Another example: you could port the majority of desktop software from Windows to Linux and sell that to companies who want to lower their costs with Linux. Even if windows was essentially a free upgrade for a time, it won't be forever. Some would argue that there are libre or free as in free beer software clones of Windows desktop software available, often they will cite GIMP as a suitable replacement for Photoshop, or LibreOffice as a replacement for Microsoft Office etc., but you can always find a situation that makes you wish you were running the original on Windows instead of fighting against tersely-documented software with their fair share of quirks. Finally the desktop software term may be becoming more vague with time, the reason for that is because Android is being modifies to run software in a windowing interface by at least two companies right now, one of them being RemixOS. Also, single board computers equivalent to the Raspberry Pi are often able to run the Debian distribution for ARM. so that's another reason to program more Linux desktop software.

cossatot 10y ago
I like the idea of a word processor with many of the features we expect in text editors. I've figured out how to make Vim (+pandoc) do what I want, mostly, but I don't expect non-programmers to do that. Word completion, version control, better image integration than Word or Latex...
- bpicolo 10y ago
  Sort of a different case. People type pretty fast on keyboards, so completion for speed gain is pretty marginal. A big benefit of coding word completion is just remembering the right thing to type (was it foobar or foo_bar or get_foo_bar?), which isn't the issue for typical writing (you can forget words, sure, but usually a thesaurus is what you need to find it). Could still be room for it though
- austinjp 10y ago
  Yup, I occasionally use text files plus pandoc. This allows me to keep plain-text files (actually markdown) in version control, sync'd across multiple devices, and to generate Word docs, PDFs, etc for those who want them. I've yet to hit the snag-point when I start getting feedback in the form of "track changes" in a Word doc -- shudder -- but I'll clear that hurdle when I come to it. Perhaps I'm fighting a losing battle there. Top tip for anyone else thinking of doing this: I generate Word docs using pandoc, then generate PDFs by "save as" from Word. This keeps the formatting the same, and my pandoc batch-script remains simple. So... OP... A cross-platform Word-like editor with a non-tech-friendly interface to version control repositories. Or that last bit as a plug-in for Word. Aaand googling "git plugin for ms word" reveals plenty of interesting reading material.

cossatot 10y ago

I like the idea of a word processor with many of the features we expect in text editors. I've figured out how to make Vim (+pandoc) do what I want, mostly, but I don't expect non-programmers to do that. Word completion, version control, better image integration than Word or Latex...

bpicolo 10y ago
Sort of a different case. People type pretty fast on keyboards, so completion for speed gain is pretty marginal. A big benefit of coding word completion is just remembering the right thing to type (was it foobar or foo_bar or get_foo_bar?), which isn't the issue for typical writing (you can forget words, sure, but usually a thesaurus is what you need to find it). Could still be room for it though
austinjp 10y ago
Yup, I occasionally use text files plus pandoc. This allows me to keep plain-text files (actually markdown) in version control, sync'd across multiple devices, and to generate Word docs, PDFs, etc for those who want them. I've yet to hit the snag-point when I start getting feedback in the form of "track changes" in a Word doc -- shudder -- but I'll clear that hurdle when I come to it. Perhaps I'm fighting a losing battle there. Top tip for anyone else thinking of doing this: I generate Word docs using pandoc, then generate PDFs by "save as" from Word. This keeps the formatting the same, and my pandoc batch-script remains simple. So... OP... A cross-platform Word-like editor with a non-tech-friendly interface to version control repositories. Or that last bit as a plug-in for Word. Aaand googling "git plugin for ms word" reveals plenty of interesting reading material.