Hacker News Reader

Comment by vampirechicken | Hacker News Reader

"It should be something that any clerk can handle and that doesn't become obsolete."

This is an important statement. in that it is a reasonable goal, but nearly impossible.

Even using word, once one gets past a simple document, and starts having TOC, index, etc. and is "four five-inch binders" full of pages, then not just ANY CLERK will be able to maintain the document.

View on HN

How elitist have we become that the top comment says staff will become confused by the term "sprint" or using Microsoft word, the most ubiquitous document writing software in existence. Would I use it? No. Would I suggest it here? Yes. I mean we are talking about PRINTING a 500 page document and carrying it around so we can't reach for the stars here, but I will grant them 2nd grade english and 5th grade typing proficiency.

Sure, maybe not _any_ clerk, but there are certainly more people that have deep knowledge of Word than LaTeX, mediawiki, etc

Okay, invoking Word vs LaTex automatically makes your argument a straw man. I would have compared word to e.g. Adobe InDesign.

It has been my experience that while almost everybody can create a passable document in Word, something technical/government-ish with 500 pages and all of the publishing accouterments that come with a document of size, purpose, and complexity, you're getting into specialist territory, and almost all of the DTP specialists I know start by importing Word files in to InDesign.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com