Finding the Real 25th Killer
|
So far as I can tell, just about nobody recognized the joker in the deck when I put dBase Mac on my list of 25 killer applications of all time -- even though I took pains to say, "in the homicidal sense." Many Web sites merely posted the list of products' names without my explanations of their significance, burying the joke still more deeply -- and leaving many people confused about the distinction between a platform-driving killer app and a generally excellent app. There's some overlap between those definitions, to be sure, but often not much. At this point, though, it's clear that the slot jestingly held by dBase Mac deserves to be given to WordPerfect, for the ironic reason that it was a killer app for DOS -- after the debut of Windows and even of several graphical word processing products for Macintosh, Windows and OS/2. In a six-way "Shoot-Out" competition among word processors of that period, which I designed and directed at what was then PC Week Labs, DOS WordPerfect excelled in tasks such as massive mail-merge operations. Its left-brain/right-brain presentation of explicit formatting codes was at least as seminal a contribution as the idiosyncratic WordStar user interface. And people have assured me that yes, machines were bought for the specific task of running WordPerfect -- the core of the definition of a killer application. So, here's to the real 25th killer. |
For more IT related content on the blogosphere, check out www.ithub.com
Comments (3)
There was nothing "seminal" about WordPerfect's use of embedded formatting codes. WordStar had been doing the same sort of thing years before.
There was a reason why no other word processor--certainly no WYSIWYG word processor--ever copied that feature: because it was such a stupid idea. For instance, a section of text in bold began with a "begin-bold" code, and ended with an "end-bold" code. But if you happened to delete a section of text that crossed the "end-bold" code, you would lose that code as well. The result? Your entire document, from that point to the end, would suddenly turn bold.
That's why WordPerfect needed the "reveal codes" function--so that you could debug screwups like this. Other word processors adopted the concept of style runs, which never suffered from this problem.
Posted by Lawrence D'Oliveiro | January 4, 2007 5:20 AM
Duh, Microsoft word STILL uses embedded formatting codes, but you are not allowed to see them. You can delete s single character, and have bullets and idents completely change.
Posted by Kevin T | January 4, 2007 11:49 AM
As I tried to make clear, it was Wordperfect's clear presentation of formatting -- not the raw technology thereof -- that still makes some users furious when they try to use anything else. Was it the "Word Annoyances" book that observed how much information is compressed, like a quantum black hole, into the normally invisible paragraph mark at the end of a paragraph in a Word .DOC file?
And don't get me started on .DOC's insecurity.
- Peter
Posted by Peter Coffee | January 4, 2007 10:31 PM