Magical Thinking and Grimoires

[Lisa Higgins <lisarea -at- DRUAK -dot- DR -dot- LUCENT -dot- COM>]

Don Smith wrote:

> Bruce Byfield wrote (in part):
>
> >To these users, commands are magical spells, and their notebooks are
> like a sorcerer's grimoire, full of unystematic notes about how to get
> specific results, but with little overview or understanding of the
> processes involved.<

This is often just fine, too. A lot of users don't care and don't
want to know any more about their computers than they need to. (I
find it does wonders for my attitude to actually talk to them,
though, to remind myself that they are often fascinating and
intelligent people who just don't care how their computers work.)

The biggest pitfall I've come across, though, is when you actually
LIE to such users or imply that there is magic involved.

Anything that implies that a computer is an illogical animal adds to
the mystique surrounding computers and results in "oogity-boogity"
stories about viruses being transmitted by ASCII text and the like.

> I wonder, Bruce, if these are people who grew up in schools that taught
> arithmetic with a handy-dandy-calculator, because it is a waste of time
> teaching multiplication tables anymore. "They don't need to know them."
> I guess we don't need to know. I guess we don't have to know our "numbers",
> but we sure have to know which "button" to push. (To get the "magic" we
> need?)

When you press the special key, it plays a little melody!

Rote memorization is a different animal from critical thinking, and
there is a world of difference between mathematics and arithmetic.

Lisa.
lisarea -at- druak -dot- dr -dot- lucent -dot- com