Copy and Paste

I remember a day when copy and paste were something you had to teach people how to do on computers. Depending on your platform of choice, you had to teach people the keyboard shortcut to first Copy (or even to Cut) and then Paste that which had been copied or cut. That has always been relatively simple by holding Cmd-C for Copy or Cmd-V to paste for our Mac users and Ctrl-C or V respectively for our Windows readers.

To be clear (as i abhor confusion) I prefer a Mac... though I have and use both Mac & Windows. I wouldn't want a person to think I'm speaking from only one perspective. There... now i can make my point.

As I said a moment ago, copy and paste USED TO BE something you had to teach people how to do. Now! NO LONGER! We have mastered the art of keyboard shortcuts. I believe there are computer engineers & nerds who's stomachs knot every time they see a Baby Boomer actually do the Ctrl-C/V combination. Their internal dialog rages like an Emo Teen, "It was supposed to be OUR SECRET! It was COOL then... now EVERYONE knows how to do it."

So what did our Windows Engineers do? Why they made it only work half the time (if that). That's right... now you have to hit Ctrl-C+C or something to actually get it to copy to the clipboard. Or sometimes you have to (HAVE TO) do it through a right click. Or sometimes, you just CAN'T get it to copy the text. Or sometimes it copies something... But when you go to paste, it pastes a picture of a trash can. I wish it could be that interestingly unpredictable on a Mac.

Y'see, on a Mac (remember... I use both), we have the boring old... COPY IT... and PASTE IT. It's been the same old Command-C or V for the last 20 years. You'd think that Steve's flair for being all "innovative" and crap, he'd have dreamed up some new dance you have to do or some neat surprise for every 15th attempt. But no, we just get copy and paste. What makes it worse, on a mac it literally works in every application, window & pop up the exact same. I'm sure there are the rare exceptions. There always are...

Oops. I misspoke. There aren't exceptions in Windows. Y'see, before there can be exceptions... there must be a standard practice. Once you have a standard practice... THEN, you have exceptions. That's like when you blow your nose with your left hand instead of your right because you broke your thumb on your right and it's in a cast. That's an exception. An exception is when history doesn't repeat itself after an 11 year confirmed pattern. An exception is when the female police officer DOES give you just a warning. That's an exception. Windows doesn't have an exception in copy and paste anymore.

To be fair, I can't say that I'm the best person to ask. I'm rather naive when it comes to computers. I have that tendency to naively expect something to work the exact same 90–98% of the time.

In the immortal words of Tommy: "How silly of me!"

"After using Microsoft Windows Vista, I bought a Mac..."
~ Brooke Philpott - Director of Product Development: Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Development Engineer