>> Uhuh. And now open Word, type a few sentences, apply some minimal
>> formatting to it, and behold as an animated paperclip pops up and says
>> "Hey! That looks like you're trying to type a letter! Are you so
>> retarded that you can't figure out how to do that properly all by
>> yourself, or should I just **** off and let you get on with what you
>> were trying to do in the first place?"
> 
> Have you any idea how many people in the workforce cannot write a well 
> formatted letter?  Features like that make Word an attractive product 
> for many hundreds of thousands, if not literally millions, of people who 
> would otherwise not bother with it.

Sure. But why couldn't they have added a button that says "yes, I 
actually know how to operate a computer, please stop screwing up all my 
formatting and just do what I tell you to do, not what you 'think' I 
want you to do". Or maybe released a seperate version of the software 
for experts or something. It's maddening trying to build a document with 
complex formatting and having to constantly revert the automatic, 
non-deterministic changes that Word keeps applying.

>> Open up Access and ask to create a new database. A helpful wizard offers
>> to generate a CD indexing database for you automatically. Because, you
>> know, you might be too stupid to work out how to create a few tables all
>> by yourself, after all.
> 
> Actually, the first few times I used Access, I had it autocreate some 
> DBs for me so I could see how the structure worked.  But then, I've 
> never used SQL (except a few commands in a PHP script), and I've never 
> studied database design, so maybe I'm one of those users who is "too 
> stupid to work out how" by myself.

Well, I guess it depends who you think Access is actually aimed at. If 
you accept that Access is designed for beginners, then I guess it makes 
more sense. Presumably products like SQL Server are designed to be used 
by experts - and, correspondingly, don't have the irritating wizards.

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