It helps to understand the deal in order to use software effectively. The deal is what the developers and programmers constructed into the program. You do some things and the software will do other things for you. There’s an implicit deal in well designed software.

Knowing the deal helps in using and understanding a program. I’ve already talked about the deal built in to word processors. For word processors the deal is reasonably obvious. When it comes to spreadsheets the deal isn’t as obvious. This is the first of two posts on using spreadsheets, the underlying deal, and the ramifications of that deal.