🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Aug02.052754.34792@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> wardw@CS.ColoState.EDU (william bradley ward) writes:
   
   What the #$%! is wrong with the programmers at Microsoft?!  I've been
   running Word 5.0 for a while now and have noticed how sluggish it is.
   (I run a IIsi) I'm talking not only sluggish when running, but on how
   it slows the rest of the system down too.  Today I ran the app
   "CycleSpy" to see the percentage of process power it took and was
   amazed at the constant 95-100% of process power MS Word 5.0 took!
   This was even when it was hidden in the background with no documents
   open!  How could anyone program a piece of code that was so greedy.

I suspect this is a result of MS's development scheme rather than any
programming incompetence on their part. In essence, the program is
easy for lots of programmers to write, but terrible for users to use.

   It is a word processor!  When I render for days with StrataVision 3d,
   it doesn't use that much power.  How much system time does a word
   processor need while in the background?  I can't think of anything
   other than periodicaly checking for an activate event or something.
   Ahhhhh!  I don't think I could write such an inefficient, greedy piece
   of code if I tried!  I wish Microsoft would realize that a mac is
   capable of multiple programs running concurrently.  Word for Windows
   (ack!) may be able to get away with hogging all power, but on a mac
   this is a very bad thing!

   Anybody else notice this?  It really pisses me off!  Too bad Microsoft
   puts out otherwise half-way decent software. :)
   
   Brad
   
I noticed the same thing quite some time ago with MS Word 3.0. MSW 4.0
had almost reached the unacceptible performance barrier for me (on a
8MHZ 68000), and when 5.0 was even slower (on a 25MHZ 68030), I did
what I normally wouldn't have done, being fairly comfortable otherwise
with MS Word --- I went out and bought WriteNow 3.0. It runs fast and
does just one thing well and thats word processing. It doesn't try to
be a page layout or typesetting system. The program is small (it will
fit on an 800k floppy) and will run easily on a 1M Mac.

So far I've advised over a dozen disatisfied upgraders to 5.0 to
switch to a different word processor, so I know I'm not alone.

So if you have a Quadra or FX with oodles of memory and 1.44M floppies,
stick with Word, otherwise, find one of the many good alternate
wordprocessors out there and run that instead. Maybe MS will come out
with something competative then.

--

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Dietrich Kappe
kap1@icarus.spc.uchicago.edu
Center for Population Economics