Microsoft Word

I like Microsoft Word. I know in my line of work that's akin to saying 'I like butchering small children by the side of the road', but I think it's a pretty nifty product. In the past, I was an Apple Macaholic (oh, shut up and stick your nazi Linux agenda up your arse), and as far as I'm concerned, Word 5.1 on the Mac was the absolute apex of word processor technology. Small, elegant, effective - it was like a wet dream.

I've been battling with Word XP over the past few days - the start of term is approaching (if you're curious, its approach sounds like the damned hoofsteps of a thousand angry devils), and I needed to finish off my Javanomicon before sending it off to the printers. This will be the beta draft that goes to my students - the one that indicates whether it's something worth getting published or if it's something I should burn and deny all later knowledge of. So I've been picking at that, adding a glossary, an introduction and... here's the tricky bit, an index.

Let me just say this - setting up a useable index in Microsoft Word is a bitch. In the end, I went with a simple word concordance file that generated a half-arsed couple of pages. I'm sorry, but I couldn't bear to work with it any longer. It's there for the appearance of the thing, and because you should never trust a book without an index. Anyone reading who has any suggestions for how to generate a proper index - well, I'm listening!

But yeah, it's done - 670 pages of Java goodness, wrapped into one tasty textbook omelette. Now we play the waiting game!

...

The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos.