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Re: XyWrite III+ in WinXP
- Subject: Re: XyWrite III+ in WinXP
- From: "Mark Garvey" mark.garvey@xxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:12:53 -0400
Yes, the revolution was definitely aided heavily by MS's infiltration into IT depts everywhere. IT was using MS software for everything else, and being certified out the collective wazoo in all things MS. Only natural to add the Office suite to the package. You're right too--the Xywriters' competence with the program was a little unnerving for the ITers.
I'm sure I'll be using Xy in much the same way as you are--writing, managing writing-project files and folders, and little else.
On 7/15/07,
mailto:peregrine@xxxxxxxx mailto:peregrine@xxxxxxxx wrote:
My experience was much the same, Mark, except that our newsrooms had been standardized on a slightly
customized version of XyWrite for about a decade. In fact, the newspaper I wrote for then in
Charleston, W.Va. was owned by Thomson. My eventual conclusion was that IT people are inclined
always to do what works best for them, not for the end user. I still lobby against that to this day
in writing and web design.
I still enjoy the facility of XyWrite 4 with the (often amazing) benefits of U2 in the writing
process. I then import Xy's ASCII into whatever the circumstances demand ... usually Pagemaker,
In Design or Quark XPress, but sometimes Dreamweaver or another HTML publisher.
For me, it's a very functional kind of workflow. I seem to think and write better using XyWrite,
but I use none of XyWrite's printing functions. I proofread only for content in XyWrite,
proofread format in the WYSIWYG publishing program and then turn it over to others to do their
editing and tweaking. The right software for the right process.
We converted from Xy to Word because Word was included in the operating system and because the
"power users" among us could troubleshoot XyWrite better than our tech support people,
whose job requirements eventually required Microsoft certification. (Microsoft-certified techies
don't play well with software built outside of Redmond. I think it's in the training.) So
the end-user's superior knowledge of the program simply made the tech support people look bad.
Usefulness, the program's most desirable quality, was one key to its downfall in my little
universe.
Jeff
__________
Mark Garvey wrote:
>>When my employer standardized on Word--I'm thinking it was around '93 or
'94--it was a real blow to those of us who had been using Xywrite. There
had been no standard until then; some were Xywriters, others Wordperfect
or Word users. We were only about five years out of our IBM Selectrics
at that point. But the company settled on Word. It seems to me that MS
simply out-muscled everyone else in getting their software into the
marketplace, reeking offal or not, and companies were convinced that
there was money to be saved by standardizing. Our IT dept was also
pushing for it, naturally. And I have vivid memories of one particular
operative from that dept standing in my office doorway insisting that my
reluctance to move from Xywrite to Word was only because it meant
"stepping outside my comfort zone." I thought about stepping into his
comfort zone with a bookend or something. I continued using Xywrite for
most of my work for the next five years, resorting to Word only when
absolutely necessary. But by the time I showed up at Thomson, in 2001,
Word's dominance was a fait accompli.
In my view, the consuming public was smitten with mouse-driven menus
over command-line interaction. And by the time Xywrite got around to
that, they were too far behind.
You do know, don't you, that Word's menus can be set to make a
"whooshing" sound as they open and close, right? Surely that counts for
something. :)
MG <<