Monday, March 10, 2008

Dear MS Word: Fuck You, Die

How many years has Microsoft been working on Word? Yet, after all this time, they can't design a program that doesn't freeze and crash with regularity. And they feel the need for Word to constantly interfere with your work while you are writing. Self-applying styles? Why not? I mean, why not make your user want to smash his computer to bits in a frenzy over your shitty program? I've got a great idea. How about, when a user cuts and pastes text from other documents, why don't you sometimes impose formatting changes on that text that can be neither seen nor altered by the user. That is a wonderful idea. It is probably fun to imagine your users' tears of frustration and rage. With near 100% market dominance, why produce a functional, nonintrusive interface when you can deliver a bloated piece of shit?

Fuck you Microsoft. Power has made you stupid.

EDIT, 3/11
My more perceptive reader(s) may have inferred that a bad incident involving Word prompted the above tirade. Such an inference is correct. It turned out, I lost no more than 15 minutes of work to the crash. So, now that I am calm, and have had an opportunity for less agitated reflection, I wish to add an addendum.

Microsoft, Word, I am compelled to use you. I understand that you will do all in your power to maintain your market dominance. I understand that you pay a lot of engineers to do things like think up new toolbars to add to your overburdened program, so that you can sell a new release every so often and claim that you have made "upgrades." I also understand that you will never bother to make Word for Mac a quality product, as it is in your best interests to make Mac as unappealing as possible. And sadly, the alternatives to you create compatibility problems and interface issues. So I have to work with you. But I do not have to like you. And I will keep trying to get out of this relationship. Because you are a bad program, Microsoft Word, and I am a good person, who should not have to take your shit.

3 comments:

La Misma said...

Virginia Heffernan wrote about MS Word in the Times about 2 months ago, saying it was an unbearable program and she hated it. She had just started using a different program and it's not Word Perfect (does that still exist?). Anyway she liberated herself.

I had another writer friend who uses AppleTalk or whatever that one is that comes with a Mac. I find that one weird in itself but at least it's not Word.

La Misma said...

You're not alone is what I'm trying to say.

Anonymous said...

I hate it too (that's why I ended up here...) I use Latex now for the most oarts, except when Word i required :-(