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Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

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Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#271

Post by franga2000 »

Aeolun wrote: post #208
blattimwind wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huh. I'd say the examples are perfectly good and on-point. While dealing with autoexec.bat and random BSODs wasn't fun, it's entirely orthogonal to the fact that a DOS-era POS still offers orders of magnitude better UX than current-era browser POSes, or than most web apps for that matter. I know of an ERP system that somehow manages to take about 15 seconds to search an inventory of ~100k items. If you export all t…

I see you work in enterprise! I’m sure that all of this absolutely cannot be changed because all the functionality is needed for ‘something’.

Tell me about it! A company I recently did maintenance for pays several thousand € each year for possibly the worst, most broken accounting software, despite not actually having an in-house accountant. The reason: one (1!) person in the company uses the software's (barely functioning) inventory feature and refuses to use anything else.

They're currently considering my offer to develop a custom, pixel-identical system and just replace it without telling her. I could probably do it in a week because she only ever interacts with like 4 out of the at least 100 views the app has, but I suspect she'll catch wind of this and stop it. I don't actually know what she does there besides inventory, but she seems to have more power than anyone else below C-level.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#272

Post by floatingatoll »

Reedx wrote: post #255
gravislizard wrote: post #217

As the OP who wrote this while drunk two years ago and thinks that about 30-50% of it is objectively wrong, it's extremely funny to me that every five months someone reposts it here and everyone gets in a fight about it again. Many of the details are entirely inaccurate - the thesis is still completely valid, and it's Computer Person Thinking that wants to attack the details while refusing to stand back and look at t…

That tendency to rathole and nitpick, while discarding the larger point, is increasingly frustrating. It seems like a lot of this boils down to people getting stuck in a local maxima. If someone isn't used to zooming out to the big picture, are they more likely to solve problems in isolation and end up with layers of dependencies, npm installing all the things? Resulting in an unstable stack and less predictable ecos…

Local maxima are lower effort. You can more easily convince yourself and others that this is as good as it gets.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#273

Post by huebomont »

toddmorey wrote: post #111
huebomont wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I remember all these things, because they're almost all still a thing. But now with a shitty React front-end.

Pretend the modern web made computers worse and then try Figma in the browser. It's glorious. Granted it's not written in React but it really shows what the web can be. It's BETTER than any desktop equivalent I've tried. It requires zero installation. Plugins are added instantly. It has native collaboration. It's scary fast. I'm not at all nostalgic about the old days.

In my opinion, people have had their expectation dragged way down by shitty web apps so Figma feels good. It doesn't beat what tools like Photoshop used to feel like before their UI got rewritten in HTML and whatever fuckery they're doing now.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#274

Post by rifung »

reaperducer wrote: post #144
ncallaway wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also doesn't change the fact that Google Maps is very bad at being a map. It's entire UI flow is oriented for giving turn-by-turn directions for people who know where they are and where they are going; As it turns out, that is probably the most popular use case for maps in the world. Note also that for most smartphone users of Google Maps the use-case is actually much broader than that. The UI flow also totally…

As it turns out, that is probably the most popular use case for maps in the world. Your sentence starts out like you're stating a fact, but then peters out with "probably." Do you have data on this? I'd posit the opposite: That exploration is far more used in online maps. Aside from Uber drivers, SV types, and wannabe road warrior squinters, nobody uses maps for their daily activities. People know where they're going…

> Aside from Uber drivers, SV types, and wannabe road warrior squinters, nobody uses maps for their daily activities. People know where they're going and they go there without consulting technology. That's why we have traffic jams.

I might know where I'm going but I don't always know how to get there so I use Google Maps all the time. I don't use it for my daily commute but if I'm going to a friend's or something I'll usually use it.

When I sit in my friends cars we also use it all the time. Often we're going to a restaurant or some other location that we don't often go to.

For exploration my friends pretty much just use Yelp or Google Search. I sometimes but rarely use Google Maps for this because I find that the reviews are usually much lower quality and Google Maps is too slow (I have an old Pixel 2)

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#275

Post by jonnycomputer »

flohofwoe wrote: post #120
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #35

This post again with its ridiculous ranting examples. "This text searching program that searches text against text is way faster and simpler than a fully rendered, interactive map of the entire world with accurate roads and precision at the foot / meter level." No. Shit, really? Get out of town. Yes, some very popular apps have bad UX. But some apps have incredible UX. Cherry picking the bad ones while ignoring the g…

You forgot to mention that computers have become at least ten-thousand times faster in the meantime. There really isn't a single objective reason why we should wait for anything at all for longer than a few milliseconds on a modern computing device to happen. I actually think that this is just a sign that things are only optimized until they are "fast enough", and this "fast enough" threshold is a human attribute tha…

I don't disagree...

but in the old days, I hardly ever remember having more than 1 to 2 apps open at a time. Maybe 3 if was feeling crazy.

...Right now, I've spotify, Word, Excel, Exchange, emacs, slack, mattermost, pycharm, and matlab, acrobat, and firefox (20+ tabs)... all open at once.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#276

Post by ThomasWinwood »

ckastner wrote: post #40

The author bemoans how everything has gotten (perceptually) slower, and then proceeds to communicate this not through a single letter or blog post, but instead through ninety-five (95) tweets. C'mon.

Allow me to reply to your complaint about tweet threads with a tweet thread. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1066547670477488128.html

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#277

Post by [deleted] »

megous wrote: post #192
ncallaway wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also doesn't change the fact that Google Maps is very bad at being a map. It's entire UI flow is oriented for giving turn-by-turn directions for people who know where they are and where they are going; As it turns out, that is probably the most popular use case for maps in the world. Note also that for most smartphone users of Google Maps the use-case is actually much broader than that. The UI flow also totally…

That's the major usecase for mobile GMaps, because it absolutely sucks for any other usecase, and thus people can't use it for any other purposes really. Except maybe looking up timetables for a previously known public transport stop (only in certain countries, some have much superior ways to plan public transport travel); planning a transport between two stops if you're not standing at one of them right now probably…

[deleted]

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#278

Post by mrec »

wazanator wrote: post #93
magduf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I also don't need to spend an entire weekend setting up a PC and a printer for my mom anymore either. You still have to waste a lot of time doing this crap. Last time I set up a printer for my mom, it was a PITA: I had to download drivers, install some giant pile of crap software, go through a bunch of screens of garbage, etc. Needless to say, her computer runs Windows 10. By contrast, when I wanted to print to…

Personally I would recommend Brother every time for a printer. They're not fancy but they are well built and don't require you to install a software suite. Roommate and I are still using the same laser printer from college. It's not wireless but if we really wanted to we could attach a pi and setup a printer pool but for now a long cable serves us just fine for the few times we need to print.

Thanks, I'll be in the market soon and this is exactly the sort of info I was looking for. Since you mention "the few times we need to print", is it safe to assume that their kit is fine with very very infrequent use? Inkjets really didn't like this, and I don't know much about lasers.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#279

Post by jedberg »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #65
dayvid wrote: post #12

I remember turning on the computer and waiting for the motherboard company logo to finish flashing. After that was the Windows logo. I also remember waiting for the dial-up modem to connect to the internet and waiting hours for a video to download. Heck, last week I played a game streaming on GeForceNow and I was surprised by how seamless the whole experience was. Maybe some web apps are inconvenient, but you can eas…

...I'm a little confused. My computer still flashes the motherboard manufacturer until the fans are all assessed and then the windows logo. And while my connection is fast, it's a lot less reliable than the one I had 20 years ago, with about three 15-minute disconnects per day on average (although that has more to do with the general shit-quality of the Comcast monopoly than anything else).

But why do you turn the computer off? Thirty years ago the computer didn't have sleep. So it took a ton of power to have it sit on for no reason.

I only reboot my machine for security updates now.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#280

Post by scottlocklin »

dhconnelly wrote: post #243
gravislizard wrote: post #217

As the OP who wrote this while drunk two years ago and thinks that about 30-50% of it is objectively wrong, it's extremely funny to me that every five months someone reposts it here and everyone gets in a fight about it again. Many of the details are entirely inaccurate - the thesis is still completely valid, and it's Computer Person Thinking that wants to attack the details while refusing to stand back and look at t…

I've been working on Google Maps for close to five years now. I somehow missed the previous postings of this thread, but a little hyperbole never hurt anyone :) Your larger point about the inability in our profession to take a step back and consider the overall situation is spot-on. The mindset I most commonly encounter among other engineers when discussing any kind of systemic problems in our practices is a kind of…

hey did you ever use the old Verizon map app that came with their pre-Android phones? That was really, really good.
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