3 ms·

As much as I still use LibreOffice, I can't help but feel that it's yesterday's software. Actually, that thought has gone through my mind for the last 15 years

As much as I still use LibreOffice, I can't help but feel that it's yesterday's software. Actually, that thought has gone through my mind for the last 15 years. It's a behemoth, no doubt, and I'm glad it's around, but man is it clunky. For years it had pretty bad rendering on high DPI screens, the icons don't really match modern OSs (yeah that's nitpicky I know), and good luck theming it because any theming it supports has proven to me to be very inconsistent. While I wouldn't call LibreOffice slow, it's not as snappy as it should be. I kind of wish someone would blow it up and start over while keeping the one great thing about LibreOffice... the 90's style hierarchical UI navigation as opposed to everything being buttons and ribbon bars.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Things you should never do: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Interesting blog post, but I'm unconvinced. First, there's no such thing as something you should "never" do, especially when it comes to code. Our problems are so abstract that few if any tools should be off-limits. Second, the author leaves out any examples of where rewrites succeeded. Windows NT was effectively a rewrite and is the grandfather of every version of Windows that came after Windows ME. Game engines and websites are rewritten all the time to varying degrees of success. OBS was a full rewrite and they're killing it. Slack did a rewrite and, whether you like them or not, they've been very successful. Some of what he says makes no sense IMO, like: > [...] when you start from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than you did the first time. Perhaps there's no reason to believe that you will certainly do a better job, but surely much of the time there are lessons to be learned even if the old team is entirely gone. When I'm brought on to new projects, I can pretty quickly tell what's dysfunctional, why that is, and what parts can at least benefit from serious cleanup. He goes on: > [...] you probably don’t even have the same programming team that worked on version one, so you don’t actually have “more experience”. You’re just going to make most of the old mistakes again, and introduce some new problems that weren’t in the original version. What the author is doing here is making the same logical fallacy that he attempted to point out in the opposite position, except he's actually making it here. He's assuming that the team rewriting a hypothetical codebase are going to make most of the same old mistakes again. While that's definitely possible, is it really so certain? Can no one learn lessons from code regardless of whether they themselves wrote it? A full rewrite was a bad idea for Netscape at a time where the market around the web was brand new and moving ridiculously fast. It's the circumstances that lead to the Netscape rewrite being a disaster. Not all software is subject to those issues, commercial or not, and not all software teams are the same.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Windows NT was made by company with a monopoly position and truckloads of money pouring in. They hired Dave Cutler to do the preliminary designs. LO can barely keep the lights on and has well capitalized competitors at all sides. A ground up rewrite is not gonna happen unless someone with deep pockets shows up. No doubt any new product will be created by youngsters that despise 90s pragmatism, local data model, and lack of telemetry. Meaning it won’t be a product for me.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      Yes, that's certainly true. Yet that's kind of my point; saying to "never" do something like a full rewrite is a bit extreme because it's almost entirely situational. Now while I do share a general pessimism on rewrites, they can be appropriate. Money and power of course help with that. > No doubt any new product will be created by youngsters that despise 90s pragmatism, local data model, and lack of telemetry. Meaning it won’t be a product for me. *sigh* Yes. Although LibreOffice has one thing going for it in that regard... which is that it seems less likely that youngsters would even be interested in creating a word processor to replace the legacy LibreOffice. Many of them may not even know what LibreOffice is. Unless the word "blockchain" became attached to it (don't get any ideas, kids!), word processors are boring. If a rewrite ever happens, maybe there's at least a slight chance the engineers will be some coding veterans with wizard beards.

mixmastamyk 5y ago

Things you should never do: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

ravenstine 5y ago
Interesting blog post, but I'm unconvinced. First, there's no such thing as something you should "never" do, especially when it comes to code. Our problems are so abstract that few if any tools should be off-limits. Second, the author leaves out any examples of where rewrites succeeded. Windows NT was effectively a rewrite and is the grandfather of every version of Windows that came after Windows ME. Game engines and websites are rewritten all the time to varying degrees of success. OBS was a full rewrite and they're killing it. Slack did a rewrite and, whether you like them or not, they've been very successful. Some of what he says makes no sense IMO, like: > [...] when you start from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than you did the first time. Perhaps there's no reason to believe that you will certainly do a better job, but surely much of the time there are lessons to be learned even if the old team is entirely gone. When I'm brought on to new projects, I can pretty quickly tell what's dysfunctional, why that is, and what parts can at least benefit from serious cleanup. He goes on: > [...] you probably don’t even have the same programming team that worked on version one, so you don’t actually have “more experience”. You’re just going to make most of the old mistakes again, and introduce some new problems that weren’t in the original version. What the author is doing here is making the same logical fallacy that he attempted to point out in the opposite position, except he's actually making it here. He's assuming that the team rewriting a hypothetical codebase are going to make most of the same old mistakes again. While that's definitely possible, is it really so certain? Can no one learn lessons from code regardless of whether they themselves wrote it? A full rewrite was a bad idea for Netscape at a time where the market around the web was brand new and moving ridiculously fast. It's the circumstances that lead to the Netscape rewrite being a disaster. Not all software is subject to those issues, commercial or not, and not all software teams are the same.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Windows NT was made by company with a monopoly position and truckloads of money pouring in. They hired Dave Cutler to do the preliminary designs. LO can barely keep the lights on and has well capitalized competitors at all sides. A ground up rewrite is not gonna happen unless someone with deep pockets shows up. No doubt any new product will be created by youngsters that despise 90s pragmatism, local data model, and lack of telemetry. Meaning it won’t be a product for me.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    Yes, that's certainly true. Yet that's kind of my point; saying to "never" do something like a full rewrite is a bit extreme because it's almost entirely situational. Now while I do share a general pessimism on rewrites, they can be appropriate. Money and power of course help with that. > No doubt any new product will be created by youngsters that despise 90s pragmatism, local data model, and lack of telemetry. Meaning it won’t be a product for me. *sigh* Yes. Although LibreOffice has one thing going for it in that regard... which is that it seems less likely that youngsters would even be interested in creating a word processor to replace the legacy LibreOffice. Many of them may not even know what LibreOffice is. Unless the word "blockchain" became attached to it (don't get any ideas, kids!), word processors are boring. If a rewrite ever happens, maybe there's at least a slight chance the engineers will be some coding veterans with wizard beards.