Open Office 2.0 beta arrives

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A beta version of Open Office 2.0 is available for download. The open source office applications suite claims to offer most of the functions of Microsoft's Office product. It includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing software.

The beta has a new user interface - designed to make refugees from Microsoft Office feel at home, according to NewsForge. It also improves interoperability with Microsoft file formats. The site warns that the software needs further testing and is offered with "no guarantees".
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Most new features are in the Writer programme. These include word count for selected text, wizards for setting up databases and tables and floating toolbars.

Register UK

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. I hope they get their Access thingie running well

I tried one of the previous... alphas? It was unstable as hell. Base, I think it is called.

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2. Prefer MySQL myself, if one must have that sort of thing.

Some of us think the idea of trying to replicate MS Office
is "misguided" in any case.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. OOo Base doesn't replicate the DB engine

It's just a generic frontend for building forms, reports, editing tables by hand etc. You still use MySQL or other server. Anything that works with UnixODBC will do.

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4. Don't get me started.

I hate all that stuff. Star Office is another one, a descendant
of something that BBN put out in the old days, a design atrocity
called Slate. But I thought that the "why can't Unix be like Windoze"
people would be interested, so I put it up.

[Sgent]

5. As a frequent database user who also speaks SQL

I can't move to Linux on my work computer because there is no equivalent to Access. Although I don't use the database engine that much (I run it against servers), somedays I spend half my day in access.

There is no better query builder, or forms editor in existance. The native database I do use for some temporary storage, and its fast and effective for large fles/merges on a workstation. The report generator isn't as good as Crystal, but it is adequate for quick and dirty one time reports and for other issues.

There is good programming support built into all portions of the program (VBasic), and I can quickly get information out of my database.

I want an access replacement, now.

PS As for the databse engine, I would much

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6. While I appreciate and respect your position, and

I don't find anything "wrong" with your views or attitude,
you must understand that I come at it from a completely
different point of view, I'm the sort of person who writes
SQL engines or query interfaces, or programs that use them
to perform customized applications, and I have a completely
different set of values about these things. For instance
I dislike SQL itself because it is a "context sensitive"
language, which means it's a bastard to compile or interpret
correctly.

Unfortunately, this means I'm not likely to do much about an
access replacement, but I think your request is reasonable.

[Sgent]

7. I've looked

at all the tools available for both MySQL and PostgreSQL. Although ok, and much better than they were a couple of years ago, they are still mostly administrative tools, rather than "data manipulator" tools.

I do a fair amount of anaylsis (regression, statistical, discrepancy, outlier, reporting) with Access, with thousands of datapoints (or hundreds of thousands), which can't be done in a spreadsheet. Although I could manage to do much of the same with SQL directly, it would take a lot longer and not be as intuitive or as easy.

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8. So I gather the statistical tools are good and easy to use.

I would in most cases prefer to use non-SQL databases. From
my point of view, the important features of SQL have to do with
issues of data protection/distribution/integrity that are not
necessary for datasets that are not in use by many simultaneous
users at the same time, and that are expensive to implement and
in compute time. Some of the features related to data-set structure,
joins and projections and so on are useful too, but those can be
done in many other ways, SQL is only an implementation, and a bad
one. But everybody uses it and it's a standard so we're stuck with
it.

Access is something built on top of that. I can see why it is
useful to you. Presented with the same sort of problems as you
seem to be dealing with, I would most likely use completely
different tool-sets, I'd have to do some research and testing to
decide which, but almost certainly text-based for the most part,
as I dislike doing real work in GUIs, but I generally become
comfortable with command-line and text-mode tools, one has to to
be a good software engineer. I most certainly would not go near
a spreadsheet, nor would I suggest you do. My brother once built a
complete inventory system in a spreadsheet, which must have been
an incredible amount of work. For statistics there is no need,
there are many fine packages out there, and a number of database
systems, scripting languages, and display tools that one can plug
together to get what one wants.

But your way is easier.
:-)