Microsoft Word: August 2009 Archives

Jeremy Reimer writes an excellent article for ArsTechnica on the demise of Microsoft Word and the whole idea of a "word processor" that is designed to format text to be printed out on (gasp!) paper and handed about:

The prospects of Microsoft Word in the wiki-based world

In the longish article (and yes, it is worth every word), Jeremy shows us why Word is an anachronism, why any number of other applications — and principally the Web, content-management systems and wikis (such as MediaWiki, which powers Wikipedia) have pretty much made the traditional word-processed document not just obsolete but also a pain in the ass.

Just read it already.

The image above right is a clay tablet found at Ebla, Syria. It dates from about 2250 BC. Nice, isn't it? One thing you can say about clay — it can last a long time (if you don't crack it in half ... or worse).