Re: Magical Thinking and Grimoires

[Beth Agnew <bagnew -at- INSYSTEMS -dot- COM>]

I think it's a maturity problem. Children are magical thinkers because they
don't know the way the world works. They only see the surface layer of
things. Same with new computer users. They don't have an embedded
understanding of the machines, so they resort to magical thinking to make
sense of what they are seeing. We often say that most of computer knowledge
is folklore -- one person telling or showing another how to do it. When you
don't understand the principles, you have to create a grimoire to remember
what happens in what order so you can recreate it. However, as one learns a
program thoroughly, and perhaps learns similar programs so that you can
generalize the principles from one program to the next, then you rely less
on your notes.

So as a computer user matures in experience from needing to be shown what
to type/click, to being able to figure out from the behavior of the
computer what action should come next, the need for a grimoire lessens and
eventually extinguishes.

In practice, a grimoire could be more like Que Publishing's quick start
guides, simply lists of "To do X action, do 1, 2, 3, 4," etc. That's fine
to get one going, but you're stopped if you run into a problem that is not
covered in the guide. I prefer to give people a text that combines the
procedures with the principles. Otherwise, true learning does not occur.
They cannot generalize knowledge from one problem to another.

Interesting observation, Bruce, about magical thinking. Thanks!
--Beth

Beth Agnew
Senior Technical Writer, InSystems Technologies Inc.
65 Allstate Parkway, Suite 100  Tel: (905) 513-1400 ext. 280
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 9X1        Fax: (905) 513-1419
mailto:bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com    Visit us at: http://www.insystems.com

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