From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,92c39a3be0a7f17d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-12-11 12:38:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!freenix!enst!enst.fr!not-for-mail From: "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: XML and Ada was RE: Future with Ada Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 12:36:39 -0800 Organization: ENST, France Sender: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org Message-ID: Reply-To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: marvin.enst.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: avanie.enst.fr 1008103082 90265 137.194.161.2 (11 Dec 2001 20:38:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@enst.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 20:38:02 +0000 (UTC) To: Return-Path: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <3C163AAB.1C8EEA69@san.rr.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Importance: Normal Errors-To: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: comp.lang.ada mail<->news gateway List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:17786 Date: 2001-12-11T12:36:39-08:00 From: Bob Leif, To: Darren New et al. So far as I can tell, Star Office unfortunately has the same deficiencies as Microsoft Office. Firstly, since most users only "program" using spreadsheets, software engineering should be applied to these packages. The Column and Row labels should be unique names. This A1, B2, etc. is at the level of a poorly designed assembler. Lotus Improv did it right by employing unique labels. Lotus in its search for failure killed this very well designed product. Real compound documents can be created using XML together with XSL. The spreadsheet engine should provide the tables for documents. The market needs a document based system; not a group of dysfunctional, separate programs. In case some of you remember, there was a program from Ashton-Tate called FrameWork that did this. It is not a new idea. However, the combined functionality of Ada and XML will greatly facilitate the development of a commercial office suite. If the sources are available, it will be truly extensible. OLE permits me to incorporate Excel data, usually graphs from spreadsheets into my FrameMaker documents. Unfortunately, the entire spreadsheet is incorporated by OLE into the document file. Therefore, if I incorporate 3 graphs from one Excel file, I incorporate 3 copies of the entire Excel file. I use FrameMaker because the paragraph numbering and styles work. Since many commercial programs can import Word and Excel files, I do not think that it will be a problem. In fact, Excel has a Save As function for XML. Word does not. However, I believe that commercial tools exist that can import Word. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Darren New Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 8:57 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: Future with Ada Marin David Condic wrote: > It could be the "Killer App" that starts having Ada make its inroad into the > popular idiom. The portability thing alone would be a real major advantage > considering all the flavors of Windows, Unix, etc that are out there. Well, if it doesn't read and write MSWord files, then it's not going to be very popular. If it does read and write MSWord files, then why would someone prefer it over MSWord or over any of the other MSWord-compatible suites (like StarOffice)? You need something that everyone will want that *hasn't* already been done but that everyone wants. Something like OpenSSL would have been good, except it's been done already. -- Darren New San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. You will soon read a generic fortune cookie.