[Sigia-l] Visio feature improvements - why bother?

[Todd R.Warfel]

On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, at 01:50  AM, Peter Picone wrote:

> Why are you calling it a "proprietary standard"?  Last I heard it was 
> still
> an off-the-shelf tool that you had an option of purchasing or leaving 
> on the
> shelf?

I'd consider Visio a proprietary standard, just as Word is a 
proprietary standard. If it's not open, then it's proprietary. Visio 
doesn't use XML or EPS (PS) for it's native file format. Or any other 
open standard for that matter. Sure, it can export to EPS, but have you 
ever seen what happens? It's like Word exporting to HTML. And Visio 
doesn't import EPS the last time I looked. So, I can't use OmniGraffle, 
Illustrator, or Freehand on Visio docs. I can use Illustrator or 
Freehand if I want to work on EPS files. That's a choice. That's 
non-proprietary. Visio doesn't give you a choice.

I've used OpenOffice and StarOffice on MS docs as well - bloody ugly 
results.

> You as a user ALWAYS get the choice of using what you want to do your 
> job
> properly.  If not, that is an issue for you and your boss to work out.
> Perhaps you should bring that up at your next meeting.

Don't know what world you live in Peter, but you don't ALWAYS get a 
choice. If you do, then you're quite fortunate. I can't tell you the 
number of places I've worked at/with that mandated you use a particular 
platform and a particular software package. In fact, this is pretty 
much the norm. Understandably, the IT department doesn't want things 
running rampant. But at the same time there are fundamental flaws in 
requiring someone to use a particular package - can you say downtime.

I doubt I'm alone here, as I can't tell you the number of new employees 
I've worked with that ask "what software do we have to use" vs. 
providing a list of "what I must have to work." We practice what we 
learn.


Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

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