Reflections in a Bonnet
A bonnet. Or a hood, if you speak the U.S. dialect. Interestingly, both are things you might put on your head. I wonder if the French open up the beret to check the oil. They don’t, I’m only joking, they open le capot, which isn’t anything you’d put on your head in any language I don’t think. On the other hand, a capote is a cloak with a hood, and I definitely remember seeing the capote anglaise worn as headgear during my schooldays.
Anyway, despite starting by going off on a tangent, the title of this post is actually very literal. Tim Bray followed up an excellent write-up on OOXML with a post on reflections, punctuated with a nice “reflection in a bonnet” picture, making me realise how many pictures I have in that rather odd category. So for your viewing pleasure (or perhaps just my own amusement, you decide), I dug out a couple.
March 7th, 2008 at 16:09
One con I feel that is missing from your OOXML link is the fact that we already have an ISO on document formats called ODF.
This feels like a classic case of not invented here syndrome that Microsoft has with all their products and programming languages.
A classic example being developing an ASP.NET website with MSSQL, using VS 2005 and uploading your code using sourcesafe hosting it all in windows server 2008.
Not saying that their products are bad, I’m just trying to highlight my point with the, “not invented here” problem.
March 7th, 2008 at 17:08
It’s not though, it’s right there in the first paragraph ‘con #2′, look again.
March 7th, 2008 at 18:49
Ah yes you’re right, I guess what I really wanted to highlight was their “not invented here” stances to everything, including having to write their own open source licenses, simply because theirs will somehow be better.
Stuff outside of Microsoft is seen as a competitor, even on silly things like file formats.
I agree with the article that they are just waiting for OOXML to be standardised so they can change it all. They’ve invested so much into trying to make it happen.