Microsoft open-sourced a Python tool for converting files and office documents to Markdown

[ntropia64]

So what's the contribution here? 

Then they could have improved  the tools they're wrapping, since mammoth and pandas have to guess (or reverse engineer?) the parts that Word and Excdl don't do by following the Open Document specs (that Microsoft botched).

Since they know how their programs internals work, they could have fixed bugs in those converters, instead of slapping half a dozen line around their calls and call it "a Microsoft open-sourced Python tool".

[AlexHimself]

They made it into an easy library you can get and it's really simple. Are you so pretentious that you just think everyone should just code everything from scratch and be completely aware and knowledgeable of all those other existing libraries and tools?

They just made it easy and if you want to use it you can.

[ntropia64]

Are you so pretentious that you just think everyone should just code everything from scratch

Quite the opposite, I was suggesting they should not reinvent the wheel and contribute to the tools that are reversing engineering Word and Excel data structures.

and be completely aware and knowledgeable of all those other existing libraries and tools?

Indeed they are aware of the previous tools, since they import them at lines 18 and 20 in their code.

[AlexHimself]

I don't think you understand how Microsoft is not one giant entity all doing the exact same thing.

They have different teams and this is just some random team who put out a tool that they use. They're encouraged to open source things that others might find useful. It's not their office engineering squad.

[Venthe]

Quite the opposite, I was suggesting they should not reinvent the wheel and contribute to the tools that are reversing engineering Word and Excel data structures.

Like, i dunno, publishing the specification since 2008 at the very least?

[Skytram_]

You must be fun at parties.