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Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:12:49 +0100
From: Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Subject: Re: Generating PDFs with Ada
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Date: 2011-01-12T14:12:49+01:00
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On 12.01.11 11:44, Manuel Collado wrote:
> El 12/01/2011 10:44, sjw escribi�:
>> On Jan 12, 9:00 am, Maciej Sobczak<see.my.homep...@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Jan 11, 9:51 am, Stephen Leake<stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> As long as we're on sort of a similar subject, I've wondered several
>>>>> times if there are Ada libraries for creating Microsoft Word
>>>>> documents.
>>>
>>>> I hope not :)
>>>
>>> Without getting involved into the discussion that follows, I would
>>> propose everybody to read this:
>>>
>>> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html
>>>

> Another possibility is to use the "Microsoft Office XML formats":
> 
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_XML_formats
> 
> Any general-purpose XML tool or library can handle them.

Handling Office Open XML in full means to tackle a rather
extensive specification.  ISO announces Part 1 of ISO/IEC
29500:2008 Office Open XML File Formats to have 5560 pages.

XML frees us from binary representations and machine
dependence. However, the meaning of elements, attributes,
rules etc. does not fit into a single brain, in a single life.
(See Joel Spolsky's article.)

You can add the argument about size of specification to Dmitry's
remarks about Microsoft's ongoing productivity when it comes
to outputting new, more capable "formats" to everyone.

Yet, the notion of a document is fairly simple one.  Why would the
simple idea have to be complicated by injecting every possible
twist from the history of PC document exchange?

Because the functioning of politics and management is known
by any competent computer software consultant/salesperson/politician.
If you are one, you know how to produce software to be sold to the
target group: Microsoft style.

It's admirable.