Re: StarOffice as idea source

[robert havoc pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On 27 Apr 1998, Steve Dunham wrote:
> 
> IMHO, we should keep the unix model of small programs that do one
> thing well and that's it.  For a WYSIWYG WP, wordpad would be a better
> model than StarOffice (or MS-Word).  It should be small, fast and not
> overloaded with features.
>

Agreed - but we can match StarOffice functionality and integration with a
collection of small programs and libraries. StarOffice is still a
functionally comparable interface. Whether the executables are separate is
an implementation detail.
 
> StarOffice is large and often too complex for the casual user. (It's
> complex enough that I became annoyed and turned to Latex for making
> slides.)
> 

Large and complex are separate issues. Large is an implementation detail.
Complex is a UI issue. I think the best solution to complex is hidden
functionality; "advanced" and "simple" modes, where "simple" has fewer
options. 

I agree with you that StarOffice has a steep learning curve due to
complexity. This is something Gnome can be better at.

Havoc Pennington
http://pobox.com/~hp