Software used to come with big beautiful manuals. I remember getting Borland Quattro and the box was a cube because the manuals were so thick. I think there are a lot of benefits to printed references but for me the biggest was accidentally finding something cool while looking for something else.

I think learning has changed as well. It’s no longer a (traditional canonical) reference that’s most useful (though Microsoft surely has one on each version of excel) but rather “how do I formulate a search to help myself here?”

Programmers have been doing GDD* for a while. Other knowledge workers will catch up or be left behind their peers.

I use Excel weekly, but not daily. The last thing I remember googling in it was last week and it was (for the fiftieth time) “excel format as millions”.

* Google Driven Development