Posted by: Daniel Carrera
on July 23, 2005 11:58 PM
><nobr> <wbr></nobr>...Common sense, something a lot of techies lack.
Informed opinions... something non-techies lack.
90% of what goes into making the office suite is not something you can split. Take the graphical interface for example. Take vector graphics. You do want your word processor to be able to display drawings, don't you? You want to be able to make a chart in Calc and paste it on Writer, right? then writer must have vector graphics and so does Calc. Do that a lot, and you'll see that these products actually do have a lot in common. Blindly sepparating them would simply create a lot of duplication, which would effectively be more bloat, not less. Just because Calc and Writer look different to you it doesn't mean that they don't share the vast majority of the code.
When you first load OpenOffice.org, only the "core" program loads up. When you then start a new Writer document, it then loads up the extra bit of code that makes the Writer interface. You then open a spread sheet, and OOo loads the extra bit that makes up the Calc interface.
Not duplicating code is the reason why OOo 2.0 beta installs in 1/3 of the space of MS Office 2003 for comparable functionality. Inspite of the fact that OOo has the burden of being cross platform (which causes bloat) and MS Office doesn't.
> Nor would splitting it into a few executables > (all the rest of the shared components are the > same) increase the download size 4 times.
But naturally you don't know what you're talking about. You've used the probram. You see that they have different buttons and menus and you conclude that they are completely separate things. You are unaware that the vast majority of the code that goes into making a spread sheet is also necessary for making a word processor and a drawing program. And hence, you don't realize that separating them would mean that the bulk of the code would just be needlessly duplicated and it would give you an inmensely bigger program.
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Re:Bloat
Posted by: Daniel Carrera on July 23, 2005 11:58 PMInformed opinions... something non-techies lack.
90% of what goes into making the office suite is not something you can split. Take the graphical interface for example. Take vector graphics. You do want your word processor to be able to display drawings, don't you? You want to be able to make a chart in Calc and paste it on Writer, right? then writer must have vector graphics and so does Calc. Do that a lot, and you'll see that these products actually do have a lot in common. Blindly sepparating them would simply create a lot of duplication, which would effectively be more bloat, not less. Just because Calc and Writer look different to you it doesn't mean that they don't share the vast majority of the code.
When you first load OpenOffice.org, only the "core" program loads up. When you then start a new Writer document, it then loads up the extra bit of code that makes the Writer interface. You then open a spread sheet, and OOo loads the extra bit that makes up the Calc interface.
Not duplicating code is the reason why OOo 2.0 beta installs in 1/3 of the space of MS Office 2003 for comparable functionality. Inspite of the fact that OOo has the burden of being cross platform (which causes bloat) and MS Office doesn't.
> Nor would splitting it into a few executables
> (all the rest of the shared components are the
> same) increase the download size 4 times.
But naturally you don't know what you're talking about. You've used the probram. You see that they have different buttons and menus and you conclude that they are completely separate things. You are unaware that the vast majority of the code that goes into making a spread sheet is also necessary for making a word processor and a drawing program. And hence, you don't realize that separating them would mean that the bulk of the code would just be needlessly duplicated and it would give you an inmensely bigger program.
Cheers,
Daniel.
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