[pcmaffey]

Basically this. It's mind boggling to think a designer could ever excel without knowing how to work with the medium they're designing for.

One of the fundamentals of art school is learning how to work with the characteristics of your medium.

[davidivadavid]

The whole purpose of tools is to make craft accessible to more people. It's perfectly logical not to expect a designer to excel without knowing what they're designing for, but to expect tools to aim for that goal. How much knowledge has to be "in the head" vs. "embedded in the tool" can be debated, but the direction where things generally go seems pretty obvious.

[TeMPOraL]

Is it though? If so, it's deeply troubling.

The purpose of a screwdriver isn't to make working with screws more accessible, it's to make it possible and convenient. The purpose of power drill isn't to be more accessible than a screwdriver - it's to enable working faster and easier with screws, and to enable working with screws and materials for which using a screwdriver isn't feasible.

This brushes my primary annoyance about modern software - the current trend is to focus on making the basic, entry-level tasks accessible, at the expense of tasks that a proficient user might want to perform. The more advanced tasks are not just made more difficult - they're often made impossible.

[davidivadavid]

I'm not sure the screwdriver analogy works here.

The tool isn't the screwdriver alone, it's the screwdriver and the screw, which allow for easier fastening than, say, advanced woodworking joinery. A powered screwdriver also allows non-trained people to get closer to the productivity of a trained professional.

What are some examples of that annoyance in modern software?

[jandrese]

The alternative is to make an omelet you must first invent the universe. At some point you have to trust the tools to do their job even if you don't fully understand them and get on to getting shit done.