[libreoffice-users] Re: Interesting comment about Writer Bugs in LinuxQuestions.org

Hi Spenser:

What you're saying is certainly true, but in this case it really didn't
sound like it was "pro-Microsoft" but rather "anti-LO" - a subtle difference
perhaps, but I believe a significant one.

The real danger, I suspect, is that, knowing we're gaining on the
proprietary world, we tend to automatically discount some of the comments
that are put out assuming they are "sour grapes" or marketing
misinformation. In particular, however, the one responder's comment:
"contains lot of regression errors in the most simple things" (I'm assuming
the writer means "basic" as opposed to "simple") is really not that
difficult to justify over the course of the 4.x releases, and not
recognizing that will not result in the continued progress I think we all
want. Even realizing that the 4.x series represents a major step forward in
lots of ways, there are quite a surprising number of things that seem to
have been "broken" along the path to cleaning and enhancing the code.

I realize that "quite a surprising number of things" is a little vague, so
I'll mention that one piddly insignificant user alone who isn't in any way
involved in development or testing (that would be me) has filed several bugs
that can be looked up: e.g. 74056, 86578, 88208, and all of these were for
things that I recall successfully using in the past. And it isn't hard to
locate other new bugs related to indexing, printing, table formatting and so
forth that others have filed. Whether these bugs were introduced due to
over-enthusiastic coding, "cowboy coding" (as we used to call it, a flawed
integration process, lack of testing, lack of code reviews, and so forth is,
of course, not for me to say. And, I'm using the phrase "lack of testing" to
include an amateurish reliance on simple "does it work?" testing as opposed
to doing "real" testing, which can be summed up as "does everything else
still work?" (that's why good testers are a phenomenally underrated bunch!)

I suspect that's one of the difficulties inherent in this sort of
development environment: the work is more or less voluntary; developing code
is fun and results in creative satisfaction (positive feedback); rigorous
testing for most is not (the best result is neutral and often seems or is
viewed as unproductive).

One other thing to realize is that the comments I pointed to seem to be
specific to Writer, which is where the current threat to the proprietary
world lies (so far as I can tell, Calc has already reached sufficient parity
with Excel for most typical users) and where the naysayers you refer to are
taking their current stand.

But, sadly, other modules (particularly Impress) suffer from too much
attention to cool new features (some of which are admittedly nice), and
insufficient attention to serious flaws in fundamental functionality, like
remaining on the same slide when you switch views, handling of tables, and
so forth.

I'll reiterate the purpose of my post, though: I just thought folks should
be aware of these sorts of postings, since only LibreOffice users (and not
potential ones) are likely to be on this particular forum (hence - we're
preaching to the choir as they say). If a major multiple operating system
forum has this sort of posting that goes unchallenged, that's another matter
entirely; my thought was that even a public offer of help - specific
questions and so forth - would be a positive counter-balance.

Frank



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