Comments on: Technobabble

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:26:29 +0000

I use OpenOffice writer for “doc” documents, but I never produce such documents. I write in text and I use latex or various emacs modes to convert the text into one or another format as needed. So, I only use writer when people send me a “doc” file.

I use gnumeric as a spredsheet because I like its functions and graphics (somewhat steep learning curve there, but worth it). OpenOffice calc has better importing and data recognition abilities, so I’ll sometimes use that first, but ultimately I prefer cvs formatted files manipulated by gnumeric.

I do use OpenOffice present for all my presentations, for now. I’ll probably switch eventually to some crazy emacs mode that will create xml files that can be shown in a browser.

By: uqbar

uqbar — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:12:47 +0000

“I don’t use OpenOffice unless I have to…” Interesting comment. What do you use? What don’t you like about OpenOffice?

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:50:22 +0000

If you're starting from scratch and get to choose your own build/configuration environment, you make want to look at some Autotools alternatives. Cmake or Scons. These tend to be less archaic than autotools, and both are open source, though not GPL. If you're using autotools because the project you're working with already uses it, may FSM have mercy on you.