I had a job when I was in HS working in an office of a importer and exporter of cigars and the guy who ran the company thought I was a computer genius with rare super powers because I knew how to set up a mail merge in word and excel to make his invoic...
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@futurebird I blame the ridiculous learning curve and hollowing out of features imposed on us by Microsoft. What say you?
I can't blame microsoft when google docs is just as bad.
You need to use their "apps script" to do a mail merge OR install one of the add-ons made by third parties which means giving up a LOT of privacy to ... someone.
I wrote some app script to avoid exposing my students grades and names to ... just anyone.
To me mail merge is an obvious core feature of "office software" So why is it still so obscure and hard to do? Where is the "progress?"
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I can't blame microsoft when google docs is just as bad.
You need to use their "apps script" to do a mail merge OR install one of the add-ons made by third parties which means giving up a LOT of privacy to ... someone.
I wrote some app script to avoid exposing my students grades and names to ... just anyone.
To me mail merge is an obvious core feature of "office software" So why is it still so obscure and hard to do? Where is the "progress?"
Most people will give in and install an add-on to do this kind of operation. And it will probably be fine. However, I can see a manager saying "you see? this is why we need to keep our Microsoft licenses. It keeps us safe."
Making these kinds of operations easy for a broad user base is non-trivial. But it's also the kind of real software design work that just isn't "important" for some reason. No. It's more important to have an AI chatbot elbowing in on my workflow for no reason.
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Most people will give in and install an add-on to do this kind of operation. And it will probably be fine. However, I can see a manager saying "you see? this is why we need to keep our Microsoft licenses. It keeps us safe."
Making these kinds of operations easy for a broad user base is non-trivial. But it's also the kind of real software design work that just isn't "important" for some reason. No. It's more important to have an AI chatbot elbowing in on my workflow for no reason.
I desperately want to be impressed by software design. Even for just a moment once again in my life.
I want to think "wow computers are a great idea that save me time and solve problems"
The other teachers who were doing a similar task to me, just decided to write out their documents by hand, it was faster. I could save time by writing a script but they can't do it on their own.
The inefficiency of it all tortures my soul! Even as I understand why it exists.
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I can't blame microsoft when google docs is just as bad.
You need to use their "apps script" to do a mail merge OR install one of the add-ons made by third parties which means giving up a LOT of privacy to ... someone.
I wrote some app script to avoid exposing my students grades and names to ... just anyone.
To me mail merge is an obvious core feature of "office software" So why is it still so obscure and hard to do? Where is the "progress?"
@futurebird @aeveltstra I agree that this ought to be considered a core feature, but that unfortunately is the myth of progress at work.
Realistically speaking if a use case is sufficiently obscure that someone would expect to need to do an internet search to figure out how to do it/remind themselves how they did it last time, then that use case will never be considered core to the product by the product managers, and it will be lost in one or another rearchitecture. (In this case it was not lost, but explicitly moved to a plugin, away from the "core" feature set of Google Docs.)
But the social dynamic at play feels like a physical force in the development of software, once you know it well enough to recognize it.
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It's 2026. No one can figure out how to do a mail merge.
"I guess I'd just have had to do a mail merge."
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I agree that this ought to be considered a core feature, but that unfortunately is the myth of progress at work.
Realistically speaking if a use case is sufficiently obscure that someone would expect to need to do an internet search to figure out how to do it/remind themselves how they did it last time, then that use case will never be considered core to the product by the product managers, and it will be lost in one or another rearchitecture. (In this case it was not lost, but explicitly moved to a plugin, away from the "core" feature set of Google Docs.)
But the social dynamic at play feels like a physical force in the development of software, once you know it well enough to recognize it.
Totally agree. Software tries to get new users with flashy features, but then keeps them by making them scared of change.
How many little companies pay thousands and thousands for microsoft just because of some feature like mail merge that hasn't gotten any better in decades?
How many do the same with google?
What I really love is how documentation just doesn't exist anymore. The "help" menu in programs is mostly useless. "Go search reddit and stack overflow"
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I had a job when I was in HS working in an office of a importer and exporter of cigars and the guy who ran the company thought I was a computer genius with rare super powers because I knew how to set up a mail merge in word and excel to make his invoices and letters for his customers.
It was a little tricky back then. But really just read the directions and follow them. I thought "some day computers will be so easy to use everyone will be able to do this"
Yeah. That didn't happen.
Libre office has a pretty good mail merge wizard nowadays ( is that a real word).
If your recipient names and addresses are in a spreadsheet, you type up the form letter.
Call the wizard from inside the form letter, choose the spreadsheet, and drag and drop the cells you want from the spreadsheet into where you want them in the document.
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Totally agree. Software tries to get new users with flashy features, but then keeps them by making them scared of change.
How many little companies pay thousands and thousands for microsoft just because of some feature like mail merge that hasn't gotten any better in decades?
How many do the same with google?
What I really love is how documentation just doesn't exist anymore. The "help" menu in programs is mostly useless. "Go search reddit and stack overflow"
Yeah re: help functions maybe the more general Unified Law of Software is something like: Features are Constituted by the Expectations User Have of Them, i.e. if no one expects something to work then it never will. The only way things get fixed is if the product manager's mental model of their user is a person who would care about something being broken. One of many ways in which agile has deeply broken our expectations of the world.
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I desperately want to be impressed by software design. Even for just a moment once again in my life.
I want to think "wow computers are a great idea that save me time and solve problems"
The other teachers who were doing a similar task to me, just decided to write out their documents by hand, it was faster. I could save time by writing a script but they can't do it on their own.
The inefficiency of it all tortures my soul! Even as I understand why it exists.
@futurebird @aeveltstra I haven't had reason to do this in decades, but how does this hold up UI-wise for mail merging?
https://books.libreoffice.org/en/WG252/WG2514-MailMerge.html
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I desperately want to be impressed by software design. Even for just a moment once again in my life.
I want to think "wow computers are a great idea that save me time and solve problems"
The other teachers who were doing a similar task to me, just decided to write out their documents by hand, it was faster. I could save time by writing a script but they can't do it on their own.
The inefficiency of it all tortures my soul! Even as I understand why it exists.
@futurebird @aeveltstra It came as a shock to me when someone pointed out to me, entirely correctly, that this drives some of the genuine AI enthusiasm.
For some folks, it's the only experience they've have that approaches that kind of usefulness. The machine (they believe) does what they want.
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Most people will give in and install an add-on to do this kind of operation. And it will probably be fine. However, I can see a manager saying "you see? this is why we need to keep our Microsoft licenses. It keeps us safe."
Making these kinds of operations easy for a broad user base is non-trivial. But it's also the kind of real software design work that just isn't "important" for some reason. No. It's more important to have an AI chatbot elbowing in on my workflow for no reason.
@futurebird @aeveltstra I don't *like* it, but I had really expected one of the big obvious use-cases for "AI" agents would be exactly stuff like "Hey, how can I send a templated email to the 500 people in this list?" And "Can you make this spreadsheet look more professional?" And "The grammar checker is complaining but I don't understand why!" Basically, "Help me operate this software that's too intimidating for me to learn."
I don't know if any of the AI stuffed into MS's latest can help with such things or not. It doesn't feel like the sort of thing they would prioritize these days.
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Anyway today I did a mail merge (in google docs) and someone was very impressed. More impressed than by the Apache server that I set up... that just makes my soul cry.
It's not any easier. In some ways it's worse now.
Computers, I tell ya.
@futurebird
Once upon a time any computer could generate and send (e)mail.
So send an address and some text to mail and iterate through lists and it was done.Then people started to want bold, italics, comic sans etc, and a word processor got involved, and it got harder.
And then Google partly solved the spam problem and it had to go through their server, and got harder.
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I don't *like* it, but I had really expected one of the big obvious use-cases for "AI" agents would be exactly stuff like "Hey, how can I send a templated email to the 500 people in this list?" And "Can you make this spreadsheet look more professional?" And "The grammar checker is complaining but I don't understand why!" Basically, "Help me operate this software that's too intimidating for me to learn."
I don't know if any of the AI stuffed into MS's latest can help with such things or not. It doesn't feel like the sort of thing they would prioritize these days.
It really isn't helpful. Or it's not much more helpful than looking on reddit. I think this is what a lot of people think AI will do, help "regular people" be more like invested users who like computers.
Thoughtful software design can do this. An LLM can't.
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I don't *like* it, but I had really expected one of the big obvious use-cases for "AI" agents would be exactly stuff like "Hey, how can I send a templated email to the 500 people in this list?" And "Can you make this spreadsheet look more professional?" And "The grammar checker is complaining but I don't understand why!" Basically, "Help me operate this software that's too intimidating for me to learn."
I don't know if any of the AI stuffed into MS's latest can help with such things or not. It doesn't feel like the sort of thing they would prioritize these days.
@futurebird @aeveltstra I don't like it because I agree all ends would be better served by improving the intimidating software in the first place. And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?
But desktop applications are a stodgy backwater for software developers, now, I guess. The best minds of our generation are trying to figure out how to get us to see more ads.
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@plantfeest @Jirikiha @futurebird selling new tech without their customers' understanding of what th is tech does is where the profits are, so I'm pretty sure that Silicon Valley are going to be taking a hard pass on this advice
Maybe Silicon Valley is not the intended recipient, but the people buying, or rather NOT buying shit, ahem, new tech.
Get refurbished instead, repair/upgrade/learn about what you got, save yourself a shitload of money
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I don't like it because I agree all ends would be better served by improving the intimidating software in the first place. And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?
But desktop applications are a stodgy backwater for software developers, now, I guess. The best minds of our generation are trying to figure out how to get us to see more ads.
I imagine your question being asked on a open mic at a big conference with total innocence:
"And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?"
The audience nods. Looks to the speakers. They all look at each other hoping they don't have to take this question.
A tumbleweed rolls by.
The silence stretches into years and the better software never shows up.
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I imagine your question being asked on a open mic at a big conference with total innocence:
"And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?"
The audience nods. Looks to the speakers. They all look at each other hoping they don't have to take this question.
A tumbleweed rolls by.
The silence stretches into years and the better software never shows up.
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I imagine your question being asked on a open mic at a big conference with total innocence:
"And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?"
The audience nods. Looks to the speakers. They all look at each other hoping they don't have to take this question.
A tumbleweed rolls by.
The silence stretches into years and the better software never shows up.
@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra incredible strides have been made in the last month in software dev. Too much to type in a toot, but codex5.1 does some great stuff. These tools make expert devs much more efficient and they can run while you sleep. Saw this with my own (skeptical) eyes yesterday.
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra incredible strides have been made in the last month in software dev. Too much to type in a toot, but codex5.1 does some great stuff. These tools make expert devs much more efficient and they can run while you sleep. Saw this with my own (skeptical) eyes yesterday.
@noplasticshower @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra
"they can run while you sleep"
Tell it to make the mail merge easier and let me wake up to that being fixed and everyone at my work using the mail merge without bugging me tomorrow?
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra
AI visionary in vintage eighties track suit leans in to mic..."Have you tried our new Mountain Dew Extreme AI"
