I was discussing "reading the manuals" with some friends recently when I showed them some books I had kept from the 70s and 80s. Some of them got into IT by doodling with Turbo Pascal and making some stuff without reading any manuals, then they got the programming bug and ran with it, as I did earlier with punch cards!
Unlike my friends, I tended to want to read the docs first before diving in and bumbling around. I like to go in prepared and as a result I'm an inveterate manual reader even these days. Some people prefer to futz and learn that way. People seem quite divided on this. I'd like to try parachuting, but rather than just throw a parachute on and jump out of plane to see how it goes, I'd like to read the manual first. Greg
