Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Using and Formatting Logical Functions in Calc

i :)
I think one advantage of wiki's is that they are easy for anyone to update anytime.  Hopefully 
information from that gets fed into blogs and official documentation and maybe even the help files. 
 

Star Trek computers can do pretty much anything by just asking it to do whatever and people seem to 
expect their machines to be able to do the same.  The physics in most sci-fi has been referred to a 
"Want'em Physics" 

I really liked Ken's remarks and agree that the average skill level does appear to have dropped or 
even plummeted.  People are expected to just instantly understand some very complex ideas with no 
training.  

Regards from
Tom :)  


--- On Thu, 5/7/12, Ken Springer <snowshed1@q.com> wrote:

From: Ken Springer <snowshed1@q.com>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Using and Formatting Logical Functions in Calc
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Thursday, 5 July, 2012, 14:43

On 7/5/12 2:41 AM, Andreas Säger wrote:

<snip>

> All this had been written hundreds of times for dozends of spreadsheets
> applications in books, web-pages, mailing lists and forums. People don't
> read this.

I know, but I have a hard time blaming X percent of them.  I run into many users who have no clue 
such information even exists or go about finding it.  They aren't "into" computers enough to search 
the web (occasionally they still have dial-up) as computers aren't major parts of their life, and 
library access can be minimal.  And no clue that all of the spreadsheets are very similar.

You can make that argument for lots of things.  There's hundreds of books on automotive electrical 
systems, but you still have people wanting a Ford manual to get specific information, for example.

I would be willing to bet the computer skills of the "average" computer user 30 years ago was 
higher than it is today.

> They want to have it explained for the exact problem they
> struggle with *right now* without ever telling any details about their
> problem. People want computers they can talk to and the machine resolves
> all the contradictions, completes missing information before it spills
> out the correct solution. Since today's machines fail at fuzzy logic,
> they try to find some human to resolve and complete

All of this I attribute to the "instant gratification" we get today with computers and related 
electronics.  Want a book?  Download it to an ereader, who has to wait for it to be shipped to you? 
 No need to go to the store and look for something, buy it online.  Etc., etc., etc.

> or even better:
> write a macro program so a single click substitutes 5 clicks.

When I was using my Atari 16/32 bit machines with Neodesk, I had macros for desktop operations all 
the time, for the very reason you mentioned.  These were actions I repeated often.  Now, most of 
those reasons I used macros for are part of the OS and/or software.  And I don't do enough 
repetitive stuff to actually get much value from a macro recorder.

I think a certain percentage are too lazy to learn how to do it, and another percentage don't know 
what a macro is.  :-(

Rather than write a macro program, I'd download an open source or free one.   :-)

No offense intended, but to me to suggest writing a macro program, unless you have a very special 
need, is like reinventing the wheel.   :-)

> IF function with example:
> > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_IF_function

Maybe a lot of these types of links could be incorporated into LO's Help pages and/or on a free 
disk image you can download.  Perhaps Webmaster Krackedpress ND DVD too.  I don't know what's on 
that disk.

Wiki pages tend to baffle me, I just can never discover any "structure" like a newsgroup that makes 
sense to me.  And the wasted space.........  :-(  And they are never as efficient in use as a well 
designed book with a well designed index.


-- Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 13.0.1
Thunderbird 13.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2




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