The current year is 2015, MS word has come a long way since 2001. In fact they bragged with clean HTML output, suitable for inserting into your blog, in MS Word 2007. If you haven't worked with Word for almost 15 years do yourself a service and don't assume it looks much the same anymore - most the complaints I hear about it are no longer so much an issue in the newer versions.
Also I have no idea where you got the idea that WYSIWYG always had a split-screen view unless there is some product that is named WYSIYG, for me it has always meant What You See Is What You Get and the entire idea was that you have to mess with how it worked under the hood. As implemented in e.g word (or open office) you don't even have the option of doing that. Are you arguing that Word is not WYSIWYG?
Finally take a look at the the output from the WP HTML editor, I have no idea why you bring up the contentEditable API, but either you are misinformed or wordpress use something else because the output is pretty clean and it can convert between that and free HTML entry.
You are wrong, please test it again. In Word 2010 it still uses the Frontpage engine to output not so good HTML4 code with VML graphics. Btw. Office applications haven't changed that much since Office 97 (beside regular interface changes).
And just because some have never have seen a good HTML WYSIWYG editor doesn't mean it's a bad rapid development method and should not be integrated in a modern IDE.
- contains VML code
- will not render correctly in any modern browser
- If you want to be able to render it in IE11, you have to press F12 (Developer tools)
and change from "Edge" to compatibility to version 7 (or even 5) of the IE engine.
Then it will be drawn "correctly".
To clarify the generated code is invalid HTML 4.01 (20 errors according to W3C HTML4 validator https://validator.w3.org/check ) and the first view lines look like this:
Microsoft split Frontpage in two products SharePoint Designer and Expression Web (the later with a new web render engine), though both products are either a shadow of the former self (no WYSIWYG view anymore) or abandoned (free download without support): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Expression_Web
Also I have no idea where you got the idea that WYSIWYG always had a split-screen view unless there is some product that is named WYSIYG, for me it has always meant What You See Is What You Get and the entire idea was that you have to mess with how it worked under the hood. As implemented in e.g word (or open office) you don't even have the option of doing that. Are you arguing that Word is not WYSIWYG?
Finally take a look at the the output from the WP HTML editor, I have no idea why you bring up the contentEditable API, but either you are misinformed or wordpress use something else because the output is pretty clean and it can convert between that and free HTML entry.