TECH TOPICS
. . . things we know we should know.
Ever feel like you're looking back at "Alice in the Looking Glass", that you're convinced you knew something to be true, only to discover someone changed the rules?
As technology continues to encroach on our carefully constructed world of rules and understandings, sometimes "someone" makes a decision in software that creates issues where there weren't any before.
Like a certain word processing program that some time ago "assumed" every time someone pressed "return" the very next word should be capitalized. It's just WRONG.
Yet it is built in now, and requires a work around.
Or, how about the subject of orthographic angle perspectives in automated drawing programs? In the "old days", the point-of-view for drawings was indicated in the title block.
Engineers and draftspeople "know" views are positioned relative to each other according to either of two schemes: first-angle or third-angle projection.
Third-angle projection is often considered to be more intuitive than first-angle projection.
While third-angle projections are prevalent in the USA and Canada, first-angle projection is more popular in Europe and Asia.
Automated drawing programs have "default" settings that are set to local preference. If you don't "know" that, and believe drawings are the same worldwide, you can actually build something as a mirror image of the desired component.
But then, you already knew that, didn't you?