I came up with that description in my efforts to explain to my mother why she shouldn't
just "learn the routes" -- there's nothing wrong with learning the routes, but if that's
all you can do, you can't
ever go anywhere that someone else hasn't led you to by the hand.
Once I explained it in terms of maps and routes, Mother was much more open to learning how to read the map
too, and that was the real turning point. It finally made sense to her as to why I was trying to teach her this other stuff.
The thing about an OS, and particularly about Microsoft products is that there
is a reasonably consistent logic to them as to how to do stuff. It's not the most
intuitive logic, but once a body tumbles to it, they can suddenly figure out how to do lots of things by following it.
Then, of course, MacroHard has to go and
change all that logic with Office 2007. Grrr. Perhaps we were all just getting too savvy for them, so they decided to change the map.
