You just get used to it.

October 12, 2014

A friend and I were talking over onions at the supermarket and the conversation wandered onto the subject of software manuals. What happened to manuals?
As it happened, I had recently found a copy of the manual for Microsoft BASIC for the IBM Personal Computer copyright 1982. Cloth covered hardboard with a three ring metal binder, thick, stiff enamel paper. A manual from the good old days. A serious manual. One someone expected someone to read.
My friend asked, how to you learn how to use something?
Well, you don’t learn a new system, kids nowadays just get used to it. What you see is what you get.
I perversely find new software hard to learn because I’m an old fart and can’t imagine software is this easy to use. Why is the ‘save’ command so stupid. There must be a trick. You have to save before quitting a program. You don’t? That kind of thing.
Finding that function I need must be in there somewhere, time to go peeking under and around the menus. Hold press, swipe, tap, swear at the system randomly until something happens. Or just give up, I really didn’t need to do that anyway. I’m used to it now.