Ian Lynch wrote:
On 5 July 2011 21:58, Robert Derman <robert.der...@pressenter.com> wrote:
e-letter wrote:
As far as the request for the ability to download individual
components of LO, this should not be enabled. The whole concept of the
predecessor staroffice product was to provide various functionalities
in terms of word-processing, spreadsheets, drawing, etc. and this
should be continued.
Perhaps this was a bad idea way back when Staroffice was first designed.
StarO was designed at a time when MSO had set the model for megalithic
design. You can see why a proprietary software company would do this. It
focuses lock-in to the core productivity that could then extend further and
further. Cooperation between applications through interoperability based on
open standards was part of the original unix design concept but got lost
until the rise of the web. So at the time it was probably not seen to be
such a bad idea but in hindsight it clearly looks that way.
Saying that because a design decision was made 15 or more years ago it
should not be changed is a recipe for disaster. Things change and without
change you will at best get stagnation ad at worst rapid death.
Someone explained here in a more detailed and understandable way just
what the nature of the design of Staroffice actually is. That in fact
it is just one big program and the different modules are just different
about 300 K each user interfaces which present different controls and
screens to the user.
If that is indeed the case, then it follows that the only way to get
significantly smaller separate modules would be to toss out the entire
program/codebase and start over from scratch writing smaller programs
that don't include any of the functions not required for the purpose of
that program/function/module. In other words the new Writer would not
be able to function as a spreadsheet, or database, or drawing program,
or presentation program, because the code, instructions to do those
functions would not be present. The new Calc would not be able to
function as a drawing program, and so on. This must be why it was said
that to provide a mobile version of LO would require starting over from
scratch and writing a new program.
I would guess that some of the speed/performance issues of OOo, LO are
because of this monolithic design. That for instance a spreadsheet that
is ONLY a spreadsheet would run much faster. As I understand it, this
is the way that Microsoft Office is designed, with separate programs
that are not integrated with each other.
It seems to me that with such a monolithic design that we are missing
the opportunity to provide one very unique capability, a combined
function where you could use the word processor to create business
forms, and within them, embed cells with spreadsheet or database
functions, turn parts of the document read only, have automatic invoice
# incrementing etc. Many times when I had a small electronics company I
wished for such a piece of software and never found one.
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