Comment by hans_castorp
17 hours ago
A friend of mine used to give computer courses back in the 90s (to people that had never used a computer before).
At one point he said "You need to move the mouse up" and one of the participants actually lifted the mouse physically from the desk - which was perfectly correct for someone not being used to computers.
I always remember this when I think "isn't this obvious?" with regards to usage patterns on computers.
During my M.Tech in Comp. Sci, I was requested to volunteer to be a lab assistant in a diploma course in programming in C for non-technical people. A Ph.D. in Philosophy was complaining that his program was not compiling. He wrote "exist(0)" instead of "exit(0)". I found this so interesting. Existentialism was on his mind, I guess. The program clearly exits by not existing any more? Can't argue with that!
I corrected him and went on my rounds. I remember that a bank manager was the best of the batch. By the time I circled back to my philosophy friend, he quietly changed "exit()" back to "exist()" and the program was not compiling again! This anecdote stayed in my mind.
Not gonna lie, exist(0) sounds badass and ought to be a system API of some kind.
It would fit Prolog. You terminate the program, by proving that it doesn't exist.
Sounds like a great name for a post-rock digicore/hyperpop midwest emo band.
I remember that a lot of older folks had trouble understanding when to use a single click and when a double click. Clicking twice rapidly was also difficult for them, and they would consistently jerk the mouse and drag things around. Having every part of the interface in earlier windows draggable and reactive made this even more frustrating, since for them things would just disappear from the desktop.
Double-click is difficult for my six-year-old, too.
That's why you let them play kid's games that use single and double clicks, they'll develop that dexterity before you know it.
There were plenty of stories back in the day about assistants being asked to copy a floppy.
Some used a photocopier.
"which was perfectly correct for someone not being used to computers."
I disagree.
Even someone with no experience with computers understands, generally speaking, that the mouse is tracking the surface of the desk somehow. I have had this conversation many times (or did, back in the 1990s when mice were more novel for most people). Nobody picked it up.
The ones who do in these anecdotes are, IMO, examples of the sort of people who absolutely shut their brains off in protest when asked to work with new tech. I have been blessed in that I have only very, very rarely been asked to work with or even know such people.