How MSWord bugs taught me separation of concerns. A webdev retrofuturism.

I remember the first time I typed a paper (school assignment) using a word processor. Word 95 on Windows 95a in this case. The feeling you get when it crashes on you after a dozen of carefully laid-out, themed pages. You start to be hypersensitive to fragile features like tables, or WordArt. Anything that triggers a crash, you delay it. Soon you start to reorder the process. Instead of going all-in, depth first, you think of layers of risks. The first layer, the simplest and obviously mandatory one (and yet the most * consuming) is feeding all the characters into the computer, and save it. When done you start to apply structure, then styles. Years later I learned about the html/css separation and was greatly amused.

I could also say that was my first handbased version control system, since every 5 minutes or so I'd save a file with a new name according to what steps were done. I could always fork a previous version and try a new way to achieve, or at least attempt, something. Tables are so capricious you know.