Re: Could not agree more
I do get your point, but I'm going to continue to play Devil's Advocate with your analogy.
With a horse, you put oats in the front, and fertiliser comes out the back. You need to know how to make it go forward, how to stop, and how to turn.
When I took my driving test (and I acknowledge that this wasn't always the case), I was required to know how to open the bonnet, check the oil, washer fluid, brake fluid level, know about legal tyre tread levels, keep it fuelled, as well as having to demonstrate control of the vehicle, operate the gears (which I don't believe horses have), apply brakes, etc. etc. Of course, to anyone who has been driving for any length of time, most of the skills required to operate a vehicle become second nature, as, no doubt, those to drive a horse-drawn carriage would do. I'd posit that the set of skills for a car is more extensive than those for a horse.
As for the comparison between word processing software and a typewriter, it is worth noting that in evolutionary terms, there have been a series of progressions from typesetting, through manually operated typewriters, to electrical ones, to word-processing ones (as seen in the '80s and '90s), which allowed you to edit a line fo text before typing it, to "word processors" which were single-purpose computers, through text-editors and WYSIWYG word processors to what we have today with the likes of MS Word. The progression at times wasn't always in great leaps-and-bounds, but incremental. For instance the distinction between a typewriter and a "word processor" might not be immediately obvious to most.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
