Python, COM and scripting Word

[Eugene Morozov]

"Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> writes:

> "Oleg Broytmann" <phd at phd.pp.ru> wrote in message
> news:mailman.997297633.915.python-list at python.org...
> > On 7 Aug 2001, Eugene Morozov wrote:
> > > I'm playing with Python, COM and Word and I'm very impressed. It's a
> > > shame that no such thing exist under Unix.
> >
> >    Especilly it is shame there is no Word under UNIX.
> 
> There many excellent programs that reproduce Word (although
> I think they can't be CALLED Word for trademark reasons:-),
> such as the word processors in StarOffice and OpenOffice
> and many others.  It's surely not a shame that their name
> can't reproduce a MS trademark:-) -- not a big problem!

I wouldn't say that they're excellent. They're usually very
slow (OpenOffice on K6-450 is slower than MS Word under
VMWare on Pentium 166!), more buggy than Word and doesn't
handle complex Word documents correctly. That's make them an
unusable alternative -- I have to use .doc format for my
work, even though I prefer docbook. But this is already
offtopic.

> 
> It IS more of a shame that there's no standard way to script
> programs -- no standardized Component Object Model, but
> rather "fragments of componentization" scattered here and
> there (bonobo, XPCOM, ...?).  Under Win32, if you can talk
> COM well, there are few relevant limits to what you can
> script/automate/control/etc.  No such thing under Unix:-(.
> 

This is exactly what I wanted to say, it's just my bad
English didn't allow me to say this so clearly.

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