\nI was helping somebody look up how to enable frobbing for widgets,\nand I found one set of instructions on a blog somewhere.\nTo be honest, this happened long enough ago that I forgot what it\nwas exactly, but here’s something that captures the general spirit:\n<\/p>\n
\n\nFirst, check whether your widget supports frobbing.\nTo do this, simply run this command\n<\/p>\n
\nmagic ppg=q-40 id=voodoo xyzzy:42\n<\/pre>\n\nwhere
voodoo<\/code> is the voodoo code for\nyour widget.\nIt will say “frob supported” if your widget\nsupports frobbing.\n<\/p>\n\nIf you don’t know your widget’s voodoo code,\nyou can get a list of the voodoo codes and\nenchantment numbers\nfor all\nthe widgets connected to your computer by simply typing\n<\/p>\n
\nyoda PHASERS=warp10\n<\/pre>\n\nand then using the voodoo code in the first command\nline above.¹\n<\/p>\n
\nOnce you have\nconfirmed that your widget supports frobbing,\nyou can enable it by simply editing the\nwidget configuration file\n
abc<\/code>\nand addingfrob=\"1\"<\/code>\nto the attributes of the appropriate entry.\n(If there is an existing\nfrob=\"0\"<\/code>, then simply change the 0 to a 1.)\n<\/p>\n\nThe changes will take effect at the next reboot.\nTo make them take effect immediately,\nsimply run the command\n<\/p>\n
\nepiskey GANDALF.color=black DRADIS=pikachu\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nMy reaction was “Wow, this is really complicated.\nI have no idea how a normal human being is expected\nto know how to do this.”\nAnd each time the next step in the process was\nrevealed,\nmy bewilderment increased.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat struck me more was that the instructions\nused the word “simply” a lot.\nIt became clear that the person writing the article was\nliving in a world different from me.\nTo me, the simple way to accomplish the task\nwould have been if frobbing were enabled\nautomatically if the hardware supported it.\nIf there is some downside\nto frobbing, say, because it makes the widget run\nslower or use more power, then the simple way\nwould have been to check a checkbox somewhere\nsaying\n“Enable frobbing”.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut this person lived in a world where dropping\nto a command prompt, running a magic command,\nextracting the right voodoo code from the cryptic output,\nrunning a second magic command,\nthen editing a configuration file,\nand then running a third<\/i> magic command\nfor the changes to take effect\nis a perfectly simple operation.\n<\/p>\n
\nI have to confess that I am guilty of this as well,\nwhere I dismiss various Win32 concepts as obvious,\nbut my excuse is that my intended audience is\ndevelopers who are already familiar with Win32,\nand for whom these sorts of things should<\/i>\nbe simple and obvious,\nbecause\n\nI’m trying to move past the basic concepts\nand discuss something more advanced<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n