Author Topic: Microsoft and OOXML (Read 1135 times)

Cesium · « **on:** April 21, 2008, 09:22:29 PM »

For those who haven't heard, Microsoft is trying to push its XML document format, used in Office 2007, on the ISO and other standardization agencies. Cluttered with legacy features and inconsistencies, and with the standard at over 6500 pages, it's around 8 times as long as the competing OpenDocument standard used by OpenOffice.org. Office itself fails OOXML with around 100,000 errors. The approval process, too, is murky and controversial. Discuss.

Lardarse · « **Reply #1 on:** April 21, 2008, 10:04:51 PM »

I think that this highlights a problem with "standards compliance" in general, rather than just Microsoft's inability to do it. It's almost impossible to get 2 or more groups of developers to agree on how to do something, with the chances decreasing exponentially as you add more points of view.

That said, 100 000 errors sounds high, even for an obscenely long standards document...

Alex · « **Reply #2 on:** April 21, 2008, 10:09:34 PM »

I don't really understand. Could someone explain to stupid me?

Cesium · « **Reply #3 on:** April 21, 2008, 10:32:22 PM »

So for the past decade or so Microsoft has been using the .doc/.xls/.ppt/etc format for Office files, with minor changes at most in each version. In Office 2007, when they overhauled everything, they introduced OOXML, with new file extensions (.docx/etc) and a completely different architecture. Despite complaints of inconsistencies, areas that could be improved, and useless legacy features, OOXML is on the fast-track to ISO approval (in which case it would be an international standard for documents) and has been approved in several countries under mysterious circumstances.

Alex · « **Reply #4 on:** April 21, 2008, 11:01:06 PM »

Oh, I see.

StandardDamage · « **Reply #5 on:** April 22, 2008, 04:45:36 PM »

Quote from: Cesium on April 21, 2008, 10:32:22 PM

So for the past decade or so Microsoft has been using the .doc/.xls/.ppt/etc format for Office files, with minor changes at most in each version. In Office 2007, when they overhauled everything, they introduced OOXML, with new file extensions (.docx/etc) and a completely different architecture. Despite complaints of inconsistencies, areas that could be improved, and useless legacy features, OOXML is on the fast-track to ISO approval (in which case it would be an international standard for documents) and has been approved in several countries under mysterious circumstances.

...and this is different from Microsoft's standard business practice?

A company with more money than god bale to push something though? Go figure.

The whole thing could prove to be stupidly dangerous, though.

Cesium · « **Reply #6 on:** April 22, 2008, 08:42:00 PM »

Well, Microsoft were actually the good guys in the 1990s, when they were destroying Netscape's monopoly. Then they had the whole bundling-IE-with-Windows and antitrust affair and Vista and now this. This kind of thing seems to be endemic to big businesses, though.

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #7 on:** April 22, 2008, 09:19:05 PM »

Quote from: Cesium on April 22, 2008, 08:42:00 PM

Well, Microsoft were actually the good guys in the 1990s, when they were destroying Netscape's monopoly.

How were they the good guys? Netscape vs. Microsoft in my mind was the battle of two evils. Microsoft destroyed Netscape's monopoly by creating their own.

Cesium · « **Reply #8 on:** April 22, 2008, 10:22:55 PM »

Quote from: Polarimetric on April 22, 2008, 09:19:05 PM

How were they the good guys? Netscape vs. Microsoft in my mind was the battle of two evils. Microsoft destroyed Netscape's monopoly by creating their own.

They were seen as the good guys because they were revolutionizing the browser market with new features and breaking a monopoly. Netscape Classic's last whole-numbered release was 4 back in 1997 (with the revamped Mozilla-based 6 at the end of 2000), just before IE 4 came out and shattered its dominance. Sure, Microsoft's created a monoculture by now, but that wasn't obvious at the time.

Yeah, sorry if I was unclear. I meant a lot of people saw them as the small competitor upstaging the dominant power.

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #9 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:30:55 PM »

Oh, that makes more sense. I interpreted your post as saying something different.

Netscape Classic was a mess of a browser that needed to be defeated by an upstart, but Internet Explorer has been no better. It now has years under its belt of completely ignoring web standards. Now there's hype that Internet Explorer 8 will supposedly pass the Acid2 test, but if I remember correctly, MS made a similar promise with IE7 and it just didn't happen.

Cesium · « **Reply #10 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:34:55 PM »

Yeah, they said IE8 would pass Acid3, I think, but then it turned out it didn't really. Nightly builds of either Safari or Opera are currently dominant. In the 90s the standards were rather lax, so Netscape and IE basically defined whatever they wanted and built it into the browser. It made the browsers unique, but also made much of the web browser-specific.

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #11 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:37:12 PM »

Oh, right, Acid3. That's what it was.

It didn't really? That's exactly what I expected. I didn't keep up with whether or not it actually did after I read the rumor that it was going to.

Safari doesn't surprise me, although WebKit has come a long way even from Safari 2.1.
Opera does surprise me a little, simply because of how weird pages sometimes look in Opera versus other browsers. I always seem to get a lot more spacing on Opera between separate container elements.

Cesium · « **Reply #12 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:44:09 PM »

For IE8, it might have been 2. Here's an article on that.

Apparently, both Opera and Safari are perfect in dev builds. Firefox and Konqueror are 70-something/100. IE is at around 18.

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #13 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:51:41 PM »

Lmao. I mix up the numbers a lot.

I just took the Acid3 with a nightly build of Camino (Gecko 1.9pre) and it said 71/100, so yeah.

Alex · « **Reply #14 on:** April 22, 2008, 11:55:49 PM »

I took it with Opera and it crashed at 36. :')

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #15 on:** April 23, 2008, 12:08:15 AM »

Quote from: Alex on April 22, 2008, 11:55:49 PM

I took it with Opera and it crashed at 36. :')

9.2?

Alex · « **Reply #16 on:** April 23, 2008, 12:09:12 AM »

9.23 build 8808, apparently.

GracefulDave · « **Reply #17 on:** April 23, 2008, 03:21:54 AM »

I use Office '07 and I'm a fan, but I still save everything as a .doc just because the majority of people can't open it.

Also, SO MUCH LOVE FOR OPERA! But none of the pages for school registration and the like run on anything but IE. Next year they're moving to Firefox, which I might have to switch back to... I really don't want to resort to that.

Also, since we're on the topic and some of you might've missed this, enjoy.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=euZ0j7vtKEQ[/youtube]

Cesium · « **Reply #18 on:** April 23, 2008, 07:34:19 AM »

My Firefox 3.0b5 gets 71 as well, but I'm not using a nightly.

Quote from: GracefulDave on April 23, 2008, 03:21:54 AM

I use Office '07 and I'm a fan, but I still save everything as a .doc just because the majority of people can't open it.

Also, SO MUCH LOVE FOR OPERA! But none of the pages for school registration and the like run on anything but IE. Next year they're moving to Firefox, which I might have to switch back to... I really don't want to resort to that.

Yeah. I like Office 2007, although I don't really prefer it to 2003. But like a lot of Microsoft products the Office line has gotten bloated, and I can see how people would be confused by all the UI changes in 2007.

Mmm, if it works in Firefox it should work in Opera, for most things. At least, there's a higher chance than IE/Opera.

Fluffy Cocaine · « **Reply #19 on:** April 24, 2008, 12:39:32 AM »

It appears that the 1.8 branch of Gecko doesn't do very well in Acid3.

53/100 and the animation is awfully discombobulated. Then again, I am using a nightly, so it might just be a bug.

Also: Apparently WebKit and Opera don't really pass, because the animation isn't smooth. They only pass the x/100 part.

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Author Topic: Microsoft and OOXML (Read 1135 times)