Re: [libreoffice-users] Master Documents, Office Suites, and the Underwood

On 03/26/2014 03:06 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote:
> On 2014-03-27 03:06, Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote:
> > On 03/25/2014 11:48 PM, Brian Barker wrote:
> > > At 09:33 25/03/2014 -0400, Tim Lungstrom wrote:
> > > > As a person who learned to type on a typewriter and learned 
> > > > programming on a mainframe computer [since the PC did not exist at 
> > > > that time], I have not learned how to do "styles".  Never really 
> > > > needed it, as far as I was concerned.
> > >
> > > Your history as a programmer is relevant - but leads me to an 
> > > opposite conclusion.  Surely in programming a computer, you quickly 
> > > learned that when you needed substantially similar logic at more 
> > > than one place in a piece of software, the reliable and maintainable 
> > > technique was to separate that part of the code and to write it once 
> > > as a separate routine, invoked from as many places as necessary.  
> > > Styles are just the same: you get them right once and use them as 
> > > often as you need.  You don't fall into the trap of having many 
> > > identical occurrences of something but with one or two - in error - 
> > > different (though you didn't notice). When you inevitably need to 
> > > make changes to your arrangements, you make them in one place and 
> > > can be confident that they will be instantly applied everywhere 
> > > appropriate.
> > >
> > > Brian Barker
> >
> > Your coding statement[s] seem to suggest Object Orientated 
> > Programming.  Well they did not have that type of programming in any 
> > of the mainframe languages I learned or used.  OOP was a new thing 
> > when I went for my last degree in programing and had only one brief 
> > section of a class about it.  Now that OOP is more of the standard, 
> > people may not remember that "us older and/or mainframe programmers" 
> > were not exposed to OOP in our education and working environments, 
> > unless we brought it into work and tried to get our boss to except 
> > that new and "radical" technology.
> >
> > Sure, as a programmer, I wrote procedures, functions, and routines, 
> > that I would then "make fit" into the new work, but the only time we 
> > "called" a "sub-program" was when we has a main program and we called 
> > complete programs and not "objects".  Most people I worked under 
> > wanted every single program to be self contained.  That way there was 
> > no accidents with these "funny new objects getting lost or deleted".  
> > Times are very different now. The last big company I worked at still 
> > used the old IBM mainframe tech, even though Windows servers were out 
> > and being used by a lot of companies.  Just before I left, they 
> > bought a rack of IBM servers to deal with some of the newer data 
> > communications between factories.
> >
> > SO, you might guess that I had not been exposed with OOP till I 
> > started to play with C++ in my "forced retirement" from my work 
> > related injuries and several strokes.
> >
> > I know the theory, but I have not the experience of a programmer who 
> > grew up using OOP in their daily life.
> >
> > Of course, I do use CSS in my web site designing, but I have not done 
> > much since my back/neck/shoulder injuries got worse.  I decided to 
> > spend most of my PC time with LO support and "enhancement projects" - 
> > i.e. 797K word dictionary, and the new expended color palette options 
> > porject.
> This is an interesting discussion and possibly useful to the UX team. 
> There seems to be usage methods that are each the obvious (to the 
> participant) route to take. Even when programming in assembly I 
> favoured reusable code and jumps. Smaller code and easier maintenance, 
> but may be that is just the way I look at things.
> Steve

Yes, having a set of codes that you can reuse in your programming is a 
real time saver over writing everything from scratch every time you need 
to create a new program package for "the boss".  What I stated was that 
when I was a programmer, my boss[s] wanted all the code in one program 
and not have included modules of code.  So you take all of your 
"procedures and functions" and place them inside the dingle file for the 
entire program.  20, 50, 100, 300, etc., pages of printout per 
program/package was the normal coding in my days as a mainframe 
programmer.  COBOL was popular, though there were other better and worse 
languages that were used to do what was needed.  Ever write a RPG II/III 
program?  Worse to debug and modify.  My first job was typing 
punch-cards and create paper-tape "program and data storage".  That is 
really dating the types of equipment I had to deal with.  I even did 
some Assembly module/routine coding with FORTRAN as the I/O for it.

Yes, having small code blocks that are easy to understand and 
reuse/modify is the key to the modern coding mindset and standards for 
doing things.

But, not all of us started out programming with that mindset as part of 
the programming skills taught in the educational and business 
environment.  Now it is.

AS I stated earlier in this thread, I never got into learning and using 
Styles.  I just never had the time or the "burning need" to do so.  Then 
there is the compatibility issues of making a document with LO styles 
and then saving it as a .doc or .docx file format with MSO users taking 
that file[s] and modifying it and sending it back to you and your LO 
Writer to do more edits.  I was told months and months ago that these 
styles would not "translate" well to MSO use and it would be better not 
to use styles at all for this type of cross platform and office suite 
editing.  A great number of the documents I have created and edited over 
the past few years were for MSO users.  I tend to stick with the .doc 
format [for text documents] so it is easier on the compatibility front 
between Writer and Word.

So using the "Underwood" type of mindset for modifying and "enhancing" a 
document, that will be edited by both Writer and Word users, may be 
better than dealing with Styles.  So I have not really looked into using 
them in my work.  Others seem to think that that style of work is too 
"old school", but it is not for many cases.

Yes, learning Styles would be a good idea, for those who have the time 
to do so.  I have little time to learn in and keep up with the demands 
of my available time using a desktop or laptop.  Half of my day seem to 
be me in a bed with a few pillows propping me up to see past my toes.  
That is the life of a guy with my back/neck/shoulder injuries.  What 
time I can sit here and type these emails is a "gift" of my pain 
management routine.  I have too much on my "plate" that takes up my time 
typing.  Adding learning to use styles is not one of them.  A new one 
was added by a police officer at my apartment "complex" asking me to 
monitor the computer center, 10 floors below my place, for illegal 
downloads, porn, and even the possibility of someone here using those 
computers for viewing child porn from overseas sources.  When a police 
officer asks you to help with things like that, your answer should be yes.



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