Cranky Coders

First, I really didn’t want to install VS 2008 (or any Visual Studio for that fact) because of the .NET Framework. Ever since .NET 2.0, I’ve been uneasy about installing .NET since it was a serious performance hog. However, I decided to take a plunge and on a system with only XP SP-2 on it, installed .NET 3.5. Surprisingly, system performance hasn’t noticeably changed. That was my main reason for not wanting to use Visual Studio 2008, so with that hurdle clear - I was able to focus more on coding.

I decided to get my feet wet with Visual Basic Express 2008. I love the fact Microsoft makes the Express editions of Visual Studio free now and the fact that you can use it for basic commercial use. I guess they’re trying to win back all the coders they lost to F/OSS C# development, or “worse” (for Microsoft at least) - Python.

My main fear was that they were going to take the awesomeness that was VB 2005 and completely screw it up in typical Microsoft fashion. VB 2008 at first glance is very much like VB 2005, so I was at home. I imported 2 projects - one which was very simple and basic in terms of complexity of the code. The other is monumentally complex. Both apps started as VB 4 apps and migrated to VB 6. Eventually in the leap from 6.0 to 2005, I had to start re-coding the complex app because the convertor just couldn’t handle it. Surprisingly, the conversion process from 2005 to 2008 went surprisingly well. I believe this has much to do with the fact that Visual Studio 2008 natively supports .NET 2.0. There was a minor snag about certificates so after a quick Google search I unchecked a box on both projects and everything was smooth sailing from there.

Both compiled the first time and within a matter of minutes, I had my IDE set up just like I remember it in 2005 (remember, this is a fresh system - not an upgrade). I still am in love with the fact that Visual Studio can extract task lists from the source code in real time. No more double work, just a comment starting with “ToDo” and viola, it’s on the task list. Also makes completing these tasks easier since you aren’t searching through the source.

I haven’t played much with Visual Studio 2008 beyond getting my 2005 projects to work. However, I’m glad Microsoft didn’t screw this up. Now I can get my VB Groove on again without feeling guilty about forcing people to use a crappy .NET framework. I’m glad that .NET 3.5 is something I don’t have to violate my personal code of honor to require users to use.

I thought this was absolutely hilarious. The OpenDocument Foundation whose purpose was to promote open document file format standards by means of the ODF a few weeks back said that ODF sucked and they were backing an obscure W3C standard instead. Now they’re just giving up and closing shop according to ArsTechnica.

At least the people that built this crap (or at least the file format) are beginning to realize it sucks.

Full Disclosure: I completely hate OpenOffice.org.

I had a few people recommend just use Open Office (actually they meant OpenOffice.org aka OOo, but lets not split hairs too much).

I’ve been forced to use this piece of crap at work since I began working there since it’s the only thing that does what I need to do (presentations and such) that we have in the office, is free and doesn’t raise privacy concerns like Google Docs does. For my personal stuff, I feel quite safe with Google Docs; but I understand companies can’t be as relaxed about things.

OOo if there’s something you can do to possibly make a program suck, it’s done in OOo. Heck, the only thing it seems to do right is import stuff from MS Office formats.

First off, opening the dang program. I’m on Mac OS X so I have to use NeoOffice (same crap, different pile). Every time I open anything, it brings up a separate browser window of NeoOffice’s homepage. Why do I want to see this? Better yet, why can’t I turn this crap off? It’s very annoying. I opened a document because *gasp* I may want to actually work with it! Not because I wanted to visit your crappy website and told to manually update. It’s freaking Mac OS X, tie your program into the auto update mechanism like every freaking other application and stop bugging me!

Next, the second most simplest thing a program can do: close. Dang NeoOffice crashes every single time I close it! Don’t these people have a gosh-dang debugger? Seriously who releases something this crappy to the general public? I should not be able to crash a program by merely opening and closing it! Now I need to deal with an annoying document recovery window next time I start. Ever notice document recovery in OOo (unlike MS Office) never EVER works?

Now, moving beyond simple stuff - the annoying auto-complete. I am tired of having auto complete on every freaking word I type. What if I just want to type the word “I”? Stop trying to pretend to be smart by auto-completion because you’re only reminding how retarded you are as a computer program.

Bulleting. Why is bulleting such a hassle in text documents in OOo? I just want to do like any other word processor (not just Word) hit enter to automatically add something to the list, tab to start a sublist, shift+tab to go back out.

No, OOo is freaking retarded. If you want a numbered list in OpenOffice, here’s how it displays:

1. First Item
2. Second Item
3. Third Item

4. First sub-item
5. Second sub-item
6. Third sub-item

7. Fourth Item

And now some random text between numbered lists.

Hey, maybe 3 pages or so of text too doesn’t matter.

Second list of stuff:

8. First item of second list
9. Second item of second list

Why do OOo users think this is right? What brain dead team of coders do they have coding this crap at OOo? Why are they more interested in incorporating features that other word processors may not have - and thus as a result lose the ability to have a usable product?

Don’t think my rage is just addressed to the word processor which is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen (I now use the Mac OS X equivalent of Notepad for documents). The spreadsheet doesn’t support formulas correctly, making life a real pain. The presentation software will randomly start removing elements from your presentation. WHAT THE CRAP! Again, how freaking stupid are these OOo coders? Are these the same idiots that came up with the JVM for Windows?

But wait, it gets worse.

Our good open source friends have decided to have mandatory use of OpenOffice.org legislated! Apparently not enough people will use this piece of crap on their own, so they have forced government employees to use this crap. Aren’t government employees already unproductive enough? This BTW is the main reason I refuse to join the Free Software Foundation (FSF) - stupid crap like this that they actually accomplish.

FSF go back to what you do best, coding gcc. Keep out of our choices for office productivity software.

No, I will not be willingly using OpenOffice.org any time soon because I am forced to use it and it’s a huge piece of crap.

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