3 ms·

It still bothers me that we as an industry completely botched the "productivity application" formats as thoroughly as we did. For just about every other domain

by pdpi 9y ago

It still bothers me that we as an industry completely botched the "productivity application" formats as thoroughly as we did. For just about every other domain, we have a clear distinction between formats meant for editing vs publishing — You publish mp3 or aac, not Logic Pro files. You publish jpegs or pngs, rather than Photoshop files, etc. Yet, for some reason, MS Office formats meant for editing became ubiquitous for distribution too. This incident is just the latest bit of nonsense that comes from this mistake.

mafagafogigante 9y ago
For Word and Writer there are PDFs and unless you want my edits you should be sending PDFs rather than docs.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
Is that a problem with the tech industry, or with businesses in general? I would think that the only acceptable format for releasing information like this would be static - in this case, a PDF.
- United857 9y ago
  Even with PDF, there is a risk -- there have been some cases e.g. with the US government where sensitive info was thought to be redacted. However, the people doing the "redaction" just added a black rectangle layer on top of the text, which was easily revertible. E.g. https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2009/12/09/tsa-breach-pdf-redaction-refresher.aspx https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2009/12/09/tsa-bre...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ksk 9y ago
But the format is not what distinguishes the process. Its the application software. We already have a separation there. There are .DOC file viewers, or image file viewers, and mp3 file players, in addition to having software that can edit all of those.
contextfree 9y ago
html/js/css was used as both an authoring format and distribution format, at least until recently - minification, compile-to-js, webpack etc. - and those latter are often regarded as a regression in this context (breaks "view source", etc.)

by pdpi 9y ago

mafagafogigante 9y ago

For Word and Writer there are PDFs and unless you want my edits you should be sending PDFs rather than docs.

LyndsySimon 9y ago

Is that a problem with the tech industry, or with businesses in general? I would think that the only acceptable format for releasing information like this would be static - in this case, a PDF.

United857 9y ago
Even with PDF, there is a risk -- there have been some cases e.g. with the US government where sensitive info was thought to be redacted. However, the people doing the "redaction" just added a black rectangle layer on top of the text, which was easily revertible. E.g. https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2009/12/09/tsa-breach-pdf-redaction-refresher.aspx https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2009/12/09/tsa-bre...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ksk 9y ago

But the format is not what distinguishes the process. Its the application software. We already have a separation there. There are .DOC file viewers, or image file viewers, and mp3 file players, in addition to having software that can edit all of those.

contextfree 9y ago

html/js/css was used as both an authoring format and distribution format, at least until recently - minification, compile-to-js, webpack etc. - and those latter are often regarded as a regression in this context (breaks "view source", etc.)