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You could presumably come up with similar arguments for why Word (or equivalents) isn't "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for com

You could presumably come up with similar arguments for why Word (or equivalents) isn't "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for complex tasks", but, from experience, I'd argue that's also incorrect.

BbzzbB 6y ago
To be fair, I wasn't arguing in bad faith and I would've welcomed arguments (should you care enough to participate) to tell me why you are right. Instead you throw Word into the mix, for which those theories (perhaps ill-phrased, but I wouldn't call them arguments) can indeed be just as easily dismissed.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  I think the arguments are stronger against Word than they are for Excel, but they're similar. If you want to run some simple calculations on numbers, Excel is vastly overpowered and baroque. New version? Hope you've learned the new magic series of GUI clicks. Just like Word, Excel files are not inspectable (again, more baroque 'magic'). I can easily run calculations on plain texts tables in Emacs (along with the normal conveniences of being able to reorder by row, column; apply formulae across a range of cells etc.). And that's all displayed in plain text. And I can easily add new functions, keybindings, whatever, to suit my needs. But the fact that you say the arguments against Word "can indeed be just as easily dismissed" makes it unlikely that this is likely to be a productive dialogue. For Word, it's way more complicated than most people need, and again, users are at the (non-existing) mercy of the application. It's not very user-configurable - you have to learn how Word expects you to do things. Again, its data files are non-inspectable monstrosities, with minor corruption causing complete corruption, and fragility between versions. I manipulate text for a living. For simpler things, it's much easier and productive to use something like Markdown or (for more complex things) something like Org-mode. For complex things, I need LaTeX - Word simply lacks necessary functionality.
  - BbzzbB 6y ago
    Well, I will see myself out as this is indeed an unproductive conversation, it feels like I am speaking to a Linux zealot about why my grandmother has no need for Arch. But just to answer a last time, inspecting files is in no way something the average MS Office user has any need to do, it has nothing to do with the conversation really. So, Excel is to complex for simple calculation, but you expect my mother and nearly retired colleagues who never used non-GUI apps to learn emacs to add two columns together? Is this a joke? Besides, the fact you can do it so much easier with emacs, regardless of the veracity, is fallacious at best and says nothing of Excel. Yeah, you need to learn how the program works, that's how programs always work. Are you telling me you didn't need to learn how emacs and Latex work when you first tried it? I for one have never met someone who didn't learn how to use Word, it's pretty damn easy. >I manipulate text for a living Here, we find the problem. You are a specialist and you seemingly lost touch with the way average people use Excel and Word. The only argument I see in these two comments is that Excel and Word are not suited for specialist needs, which is probably true, but I don't see a hint of why they are not suited for basic operations or their intended use cases. So I will see myself out, thanks.

BbzzbB 6y ago

To be fair, I wasn't arguing in bad faith and I would've welcomed arguments (should you care enough to participate) to tell me why you are right. Instead you throw Word into the mix, for which those theories (perhaps ill-phrased, but I wouldn't call them arguments) can indeed be just as easily dismissed.

_emacsomancer_ 6y ago
I think the arguments are stronger against Word than they are for Excel, but they're similar. If you want to run some simple calculations on numbers, Excel is vastly overpowered and baroque. New version? Hope you've learned the new magic series of GUI clicks. Just like Word, Excel files are not inspectable (again, more baroque 'magic'). I can easily run calculations on plain texts tables in Emacs (along with the normal conveniences of being able to reorder by row, column; apply formulae across a range of cells etc.). And that's all displayed in plain text. And I can easily add new functions, keybindings, whatever, to suit my needs. But the fact that you say the arguments against Word "can indeed be just as easily dismissed" makes it unlikely that this is likely to be a productive dialogue. For Word, it's way more complicated than most people need, and again, users are at the (non-existing) mercy of the application. It's not very user-configurable - you have to learn how Word expects you to do things. Again, its data files are non-inspectable monstrosities, with minor corruption causing complete corruption, and fragility between versions. I manipulate text for a living. For simpler things, it's much easier and productive to use something like Markdown or (for more complex things) something like Org-mode. For complex things, I need LaTeX - Word simply lacks necessary functionality.
- BbzzbB 6y ago
  Well, I will see myself out as this is indeed an unproductive conversation, it feels like I am speaking to a Linux zealot about why my grandmother has no need for Arch. But just to answer a last time, inspecting files is in no way something the average MS Office user has any need to do, it has nothing to do with the conversation really. So, Excel is to complex for simple calculation, but you expect my mother and nearly retired colleagues who never used non-GUI apps to learn emacs to add two columns together? Is this a joke? Besides, the fact you can do it so much easier with emacs, regardless of the veracity, is fallacious at best and says nothing of Excel. Yeah, you need to learn how the program works, that's how programs always work. Are you telling me you didn't need to learn how emacs and Latex work when you first tried it? I for one have never met someone who didn't learn how to use Word, it's pretty damn easy. >I manipulate text for a living Here, we find the problem. You are a specialist and you seemingly lost touch with the way average people use Excel and Word. The only argument I see in these two comments is that Excel and Word are not suited for specialist needs, which is probably true, but I don't see a hint of why they are not suited for basic operations or their intended use cases. So I will see myself out, thanks.