An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

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MSDN Blog Postings » An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:40:17 GMT

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Open XML links for 01-30-2008

Doug Mahugh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:31:55 GMT

Open XML and XSLT with XMLSpy. Alex Falk has a great post on how to create a simple XSLT that transforms

Open XML links for 01-30-2008

Noticias externas — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:55:15 GMT

Open XML and XSLT with XMLSpy. Alex Falk has a great post on how to create a simple XSLT that transforms

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

Dave S. — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:59:06 GMT

"ISO ratification of this specification is important to the productivity of the entire world"

Exaggeration at its best. Up there with Salk and Einstein?

"Leave the assessment of the length of the spec to the people competent to make that assessment."

What is the length of the spec? Page count is a poor measure. Word count is slightly better, but not always indicative.

A close approximation is the Zipped file size - how big is the Zipped spec?

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

EricWhite — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:28:15 GMT

WRT how important the spec is, reasonable people can disagree. It's not possible to get an assessment of the number of binary docs that can be converted to Open XML with high fidelity, but I'm sure that we agree that the number is huge.

About the length of the spec when zipped, I'm sure that you know how to run WinZip ;)

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

Dave S. — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:34:49 GMT

How do a huge number of existing documents that can be converted from one format to another format bear on the importance of the -ratification- of a document that describes one of the formats?

The existance of those documents is a drain on productivity, as they will either a) need time and effort to convert and to manage the conversion and to prevent documents from being re-converted (to avoid anomalies) , or b) require all future applications to maintain the conversion segment for each old format and to each newer one.

Most of the huge number of documents are in the -other- format and the -other- format has no ratified ISO standard. Having the older formats ISO ratified would make a productivity boost, especially if it included a validation suite to ensure applications were generating valid files.

99.999999% of existing MS Binary-format files would have been better off being preserved as PDFs. The need to view and print existing documents far exceeds the need to edit them. Editting documents is often undesireable, such as for legal documents.

Not all Microsoft bloggers know about WinZip or that the zip method used by MS Office 2007 is sub-optimal (~20% larger) WRT WinZip. I'm impressed.

Link List: Language Topics, Data Service, jQuery,F#, Spec#, Specs Reading, etc...

Guru Stop — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:09:35 GMT

It started an email Mohamed Hossam (AKA, Bashmohandes) sent to my company's local office here in Egypt

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

EricWhite — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:50:11 GMT

Dave S.,

In the Office Open XML Overview, in section 2, entitled, “Purposes for the Standard”, the first sentence says: “OpenXML was designed from the start to be capable of faithfully representing the pre-existing corpus of word-processing documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that are encoded in binary formats defined by Microsoft Corporation.”

You may not agree with the stated purpose of the Ecma 376 standard, however Ecma’s standard is in alignment with its purpose.

What we're trying to do here is to provide the most seamless way forward for all these people who have binary documents. Of course, IBM would rather force people to convert to ODF, and then sell consulting services to aleve their pain.

With regards to the desirability of the binary formats over an XML format, I personally think that it is a no-brainer to allow developers to use any of the really good XML programming APIs, instead of munging around in a binary file. The CTO of ThinkFree (www.thinkfree.com) indicated that it was far easier to work with Open XML than the binary formats, and his company has done extensive work with both.

I think that your assertion regarding binary format files would be better preserved as PDF is not correct. It certainly is not what we hear from our customers.

And finally, regarding your comment about WinZip, sarcasm is not the most effective tool to convince people. I'd like to invite you to move the discussion up a level. Let's argue with supported assertions, politely phrased opinions, etc. :)

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

Dave S. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:00:52 GMT

"What we're trying to do here is to provide the most seamless way forward for all these people who have binary documents."

Even a plane going in a circle around the planet is going 'forward'. Forward is a direction in the context of a destination.

What is the destination that MSO-XML and ECMA(...) were designed for? Re-representing exisiting docs on its own is a useless destination.

"IBM would rather force people to convert to ODF, and then sell consulting services to aleve(sic) their pain."

Wouldn't Microsoft be in a much better position to sell consulting services?

Mine - "MS Binary-format files would have been better off being preserved as PDFs" Yours - "it is a no-brainer to allow developers to use any of the really good XML programming APIs, instead of munging around in a binary file."

Another orthogonal answer. I wrote of preserving documents, you reply about creating documents.

ThinkFree supports saving as PDF. Their Flash presentation has a number of errors as well, some spelling, esp slide #5/11. Is ThinkFree "the compatible" alternative to Office? The first three bullets on slide #9 are interesting as well.

A company offering professional support should be able to produce a professional advertisement. Likewise a poor presentation suggests a lack of attention to detail. Not a good reference.

Still no size of the zipped spec?

I asked someone - Gray Knowlton - why the zipped version of a '97 doc was smaller than the same-version of an '07 docx, given that zip is used to compress it and smaller file size was one benefit of MSO-XML.

The answer was somthing about robustness.

Then I thought - un-zip and re-zip the docx. Ta-da -20% smaller than the original .docx file and a little smaller than the zipped '97 .doc.

So I asked what was left out of the .docx file that was in the '97, as compression is limited by the true information content.

No answer from Gary.

Weren't you sarcastic to begin with - "About the length of the spec when zipped, I'm sure that you know how to run WinZip ;)?" Complete with emoticon and all. It looks intended to be demeaning.

The ratification question is still up for answer also. Java has no ISO spec, but it seems to do as well as MSO-XML would have done by simply publishing MSO-XML via the Web.

Again, why was ratification so important?

re: An Approach to Reading Specifications Quickly

Yawar Amin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:57:08 GMT

Dave S., I hate to butt in, but Eric pretty clearly answered your concern about whether it's better to store documents as PDF or in an editable format: `I think that your assertion regarding binary format files would be better preserved as PDF is not correct. It certainly is not what we hear from our customers.'

Obviously these are just opinions. If Eric were to provide a reference to a plausible sample survey done among customers, we could see for ourselves whether they prefer to edit documents or keep them archived forever. But then if it's the latter, where's the need for a format like ODF?