I’d rather break things in favor of something better, and provide a way to make the old thing run, than be stuck with ancient baggage

Windows is office software first and foremost, designed to be used by people who neither know nor care what an “operating system” is. Every last one of these people is entirely incapacitated by even the most lovingly-crafted and descriptive error message. If Microsoft ever considered a policy like this, the city of Redmond would be razed to the ground inside twelve hours

Seriously. For a lot of people, SMB single-handedly answered the question of whether home consoles or arcades were the future.

I find that I slip into the same habit sometimes – specifically, when I’m typing something where perfect grammar will come off as overly formal, but I’m stressing a bit over what level of informality is appropriate. It taxes the frontal lobes, which means that my thoughts are disjointed in a way that ellipses just make sense with. I think it’s so widespread among older people because when they were first introduced to instant messaging, they weren’t sure how they would come off, and then it became a habit. But that’s just me guessing.