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Splash screens == sloth

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131–140 of 246 posts

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#132
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you can run the same software on a variety of hardware with different specs and capabilities, it's always up to the consumer to spend more money to make that software run faster. Having said that, I agree with the idea of making software less monolithic and making it start up as fast as possible, as long as it is possible. However, when I say that I want a program to start up fast, I mean that I want it to s…

I might have misstated. I mean that consumers shouldn't have to compensate for poorly written (in terms of efficiency and speed) software. Sure buying an SSD would increase the write speed, which is usually the bottleneck for a system, but the consumer can save a couple hundred bucks if the developing company focused on speed instead of bloat. And I agreed about the "faking" issue. Just like how Windows will silently…

It's probably the random read speed that matters for starting apps.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#133
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is sort-of the idea behind OSX behavior where an App is running with no open windows. They WANT you to leave everything running in the background. As a longtime Windows user, I still find this confusing, but I think they're trying to make everything appear to "load" instantly because it's just always running... sort of like on a phone.

+1. I find that extremely annoying. Some times I reopen a window of preview let's say just to close the whole program.

Why not just switch to it and quit it without opening a new Window?

That's the whole paradigm. Windows belong to applications, but applications aren't windows. That's one reason the menu bar is divorced from any window (along with Fitt's law): so that you can interact with an app even when it currently has no windows open.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#134
post #128

A splash screen basically tells me, in very clear-cut terms, that my time is worth nothing whatsoever. It's a fresh reminder that users' needs don't count as much as programmer convenience does. So... how much IS your time worth? How much extra would you be willing to pay for instantly-responsive applications? Programmer time isn't free, either.

One other thing to keep in mind: if you dislike splash screens but don't have an SSD, then you have already placed a maximum dollar value on how much you care about your applications' loading time.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#136
post #128

A splash screen basically tells me, in very clear-cut terms, that my time is worth nothing whatsoever. It's a fresh reminder that users' needs don't count as much as programmer convenience does. So... how much IS your time worth? How much extra would you be willing to pay for instantly-responsive applications? Programmer time isn't free, either.

Why should users have to pay extra??

The new version of Basecamp (by the guys who invented Rails) focused on speed, because speed = $$$.

The question is, why would you throw away your userbase because your app is so slow to load, it's cutting into their productivity?

There is a very large gap between 'instantly responsive applications' and Photoshop.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#137
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't like that feature of Windows Update? Turn off automatic updates and do it manually when you wish. Although I agree with the annoyance of accidentally opening something like Photoshop and having to wait to close it. But a good number of resources that is loading is third-party stuff that demands to be present immediately on startup as opposed to being loaded on demand. But whatever. Paint has the same UI as what…

Their interface is the same. Are you utterly blind? Stop looking at the UX as a programmer and imagining the complexity of the features. The actual screen is displaying exactly the same stuff. There's a big white box to draw in and bunch of buttons to press. You do not need to initalize all the 3rd party tools, you just have to find out which tiny little icon to add on a task bar or extra menu items to add, and why d…

The interface may be the same but I'm willing to bet under the hood they are quite different on a large scale. You seem unwilling to admit that.

I don't understand what you are saying about third party tools. Could you clarify? Is that whole sentence talking about the same thing because I read it as having four different topics in there.

If a corporation won't allow you to adjust update settings then that's an issue to take up with IT since they are preventing you from doing what you need, not the software itself. What if the default settings were exactly what you wanted and your IT department prevented it, is that also the fault of the software? I think your complaint is misdirected in this case.

Ask ten different people to define best case scenario and I bet you'll get several different answers. Which one do you choose? You can't make everyone happy but I guess since you're not happy then your way is the best choice? What you complain about telling users "if they just..." is what I call choice. When I say an application won't do something I need then I WANT the answer to be "if you just do this..." so I can have that choice.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#138
post #136
post #128

A splash screen basically tells me, in very clear-cut terms, that my time is worth nothing whatsoever. It's a fresh reminder that users' needs don't count as much as programmer convenience does. So... how much IS your time worth? How much extra would you be willing to pay for instantly-responsive applications? Programmer time isn't free, either.

Why should users have to pay extra?? The new version of Basecamp (by the guys who invented Rails) focused on speed, because speed = $$$. The question is, why would you throw away your userbase because your app is so slow to load, it's cutting into their productivity? There is a very large gap between 'instantly responsive applications' and Photoshop.

Right, because all software is equal in complexity therefore they should all share the same requirement in resource loading and time?

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#139
post #128

A splash screen basically tells me, in very clear-cut terms, that my time is worth nothing whatsoever. It's a fresh reminder that users' needs don't count as much as programmer convenience does. So... how much IS your time worth? How much extra would you be willing to pay for instantly-responsive applications? Programmer time isn't free, either.

One other thing to keep in mind: if you dislike splash screens but don't have an SSD, then you have already placed a maximum dollar value on how much you care about your applications' loading time.

Exactly right. The splash screen is there only to show what it's doing while loading all the libraries and parsing setting files. If this guy/girl really hated the photoshop startup screen, he should do two things:

1. Get a better harddrive setup for his business.

2. Have photoshop start automatically after boot.

A quick timed test on two striped SSD's: Photoshop starts up in 4 seconds from click to ready. Blender takes about 1.5 second.

Re: Splash screens == sloth

#140
Whether or not the programmers of Photoshop can make their app run faster, I have to say it's pretty sad that waiting 10 seconds is worth whining about. I understand this is unacceptable for a web app's page load time, but for a desktop app that loads an enormous amount of resources once before letting you use it seems acceptable to me.

I think the real problem is that we are all so incredibly spoiled that waiting 10s is a huge inconvenience. I'm not saying it's not annoying. I don't like it either... that squirming feeling you get when you expect something to be fast and it isn't. But, like, get over it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most important issue in the cosmos, waiting 10 seconds for an app to load would be about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 (if that). Perhaps there are more important things to write about.

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