it works on my machine

I keep seeing things that I wish there were comprehensive tutorials for – I'm thinking, now, of gpg and tramp – but I realize that really, all computer problems break down to that dreaded phrase:

Well, it works on my machine.

Computers are great big balls of state, aren't they? That's why rebooting fixes so many problems. I guess you could say life is a great big ball of state, though we can't reboot it easily.

Anyway, this is all to say that things are complicated, I suppose. And while it'd be nice to have simpler things, I think that trying too hard to simplify actually creates more problems than it's worth (see Applied Language for other ideas).