81–90 of 451 posts
Random other info: One time the application on the remote host crashed and dropped me to a Unix shell. ls showed the directory had around 50000 files. The system's name was "DS Galaxy 2000".
Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.
Analog TV were real time at the speed of electrons minus some layers of inertia (capacitance say). Nowadays there's many layers of various quality, and software reactivity is a factor of so many things.
This is a very hard rant to read. The examples either aren't factually true or are poorly explained and the "solution" is largely nebulous. I feel like this topic has merit and with a well written article with real examples (both 2019 and 83) it could be something special, but this isn't that. I'd be interested to know how many upvoted based on the title/what they expected this to be, rather than after having tried t…
Keyboard buffer. You know what is keyboard buffer?
One that got worse and then better again at least in my experience is boot up time. Old computers running MS-DOS I remember booting up very quickly (unless you waited for the full memory self test), then for quite a long time it took forever to get into Windows no matter what you did to try to speed it up. More recently things start up pretty quickly again; I think it's mainly hardware (solid-state disks being the ma…
Still hasn't caught up to a c64. A flick, loaded.
Well, I think it's much more valid to claim it's much slower than 2000. Take for instance, Microsoft Office products. On a business class desktop, i3-i5, they are much slower than they were in 2000 in all aspects. Software has become slower as computers have zoomed in speed.
This is a very hard rant to read. The examples either aren't factually true or are poorly explained and the "solution" is largely nebulous. I feel like this topic has merit and with a well written article with real examples (both 2019 and 83) it could be something special, but this isn't that. I'd be interested to know how many upvoted based on the title/what they expected this to be, rather than after having tried t…
"Everything was blindingly fast in the 80s!"
- Yes you fuckwad, it was the 80s and the vast majority of content was local to your machine, or your machine was really just a terminal wired to a nearby mainframe. Do I need to link the "latencies every programmer should know?" article yet again?
https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~rcs/research/interactive_l...
The delay is not some UI designer out to get you, it's a fact of life when the data you want lives on a machine that is remote. Sadly RTT is still bound by the speed of light.
That's why there's a freaking spinner. Your computer and the UI has SO much time to kill waiting for the network that they can render a happy little dancing spinner for you.
"The mouse is a terrible invention"
- Oh really? I think it's actually a great tool for pointing and clicking on things. I grew up playing video games on computers. The mouse is first class input device that works incredibly well.
Better yet, its use doesn't vary all that much based on specific context and application. Yes, you had memorized your POS system well enough you can do it blind! Great, now fuck off. I use my computer across hundreds of applications every day. I have no desire to become a master of the hotkeys of each of those applications. I'd like to reserve the space in my head for things that matter.
"I want to clarify that I am literally talking about the future of the human race and I am deadly serious about this. It's not about me."
- No, I actually rather think it is exactly "about you". The author has failed to acknowledge the INCREDIBLY VAST expansion of a computer users reach over the last 30 years. I vividly remember playing my first multiple computer game. I was 10 and the computers had to be wired together with an old DB9 COM cable (branded a "gaming cable" at the time).
Now I can literally watch webcams on the other side of the world from my house. I can click a few buttons (on my shiny mouse, I might add) and start a chain of events that leads to direct action on the other side of the world, from shipping me cheap shit or to planting trees.
I can work from my house and still do my job just as well as if I were in the office. I can have a coworkers who live in Ukraine, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, etc. Not only can we be productive, we can laugh and chat online, or using video calls.
BUT FUCK! How dare they add some latency in the process of getting you all that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding." That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of gu…
Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding." That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of gu…
Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?