I built a lot of applications like this in Clipper back in the day. With the extended linker they ran light lightning. I have one still in use today.
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)
#22I 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…
> you can easily setup a command line interface or Linux system and move blazing fast. Maybe the HN crowd can but not your average or median computer users > I remember turning on the computer and waiting for the motherboard company logo to finish flashing I still have computers that take some time to boot. Issue is, I just rarely power off/on. Instead the computers go to sleep which if much faster to come out of. Of…
> Maybe the HN crowd can but not your average or median computer users
The median computer user and use cases from 1983 to 2020 are very different.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#23Almost everything on computers is perceptually more rich, useful, and intuitive than it was in 1983.
Citation?
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#24The web is lightning fast when I turn off javascript.
I heard people saying this a lot so I decided I'd give it a try. My experience is that this quote is actually, "The web is lightning fast when we don't use most of it." The number of features and websites that just wouldn't work was significant.
However, some sites I visited that were informational only did get a bit faster which for some people with bad Internet connections might make a difference.
This probably already exists, but what I want is an AdBlocker-style plugin that executes a community-curated list of "websites that need JavaScript to work." I can then get the best of both worlds: faster websites with less unnecessary JavaScript, but without crippling a large portion of the Internet for myself.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#25"one of the things that makes me steaming mad is how the entire field of web apps ignores 100% of learned lessons from desktop apps"
Not perhaps 100% but sure, in the modern age of web apps for everything I miss having proper desktop apps.
Even more so, programming web apps is nowhere near as convenient as developing desktop apps in late 90's with tools like Delphi.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#26I 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…
Most computers weren't that bad, but there was a time when Windows 95/98 and the mainstream hardware it ran on weren't a good match. That's what you remember.
Even then, once the thing did boot up, applications were rather responsive.
> ...you can easily setup a command line interface or Linux system and move blazing fast.
No, you can't. The majority of people uses software that is imposed upon them. The majority of work can not efficiently be expressed in CLIs.
It's the responsibility of software developers to write responsive software and in many cases, they have failed. Of course, with the inefficient web platform, their job is made difficult from the start.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#27When an area of engineering is new we make products better than the market will eventually pay for. Over time, we learn how to make them just good enough to reach an equilibrium in a market. This is an idea that is explored in _The World Without Us_ by Alan Wiesman. The Roman Colosseum still stands, but buildings today don't need to be that durable. It would cost significantly more to make them that way, so we don't. The same could be said about supersonic travel. We could do it again, but enough of us are happy to not pay the premium, so that product has disappeared.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#28I remember when all of this was trees.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#29Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#30I 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…
> you can easily setup a command line interface or Linux system and move blazing fast Well... not really. Terminal response times are way slower than they used to be in the 80's. Sure, we have greater throughput, but we also have greater latency. https://danluu.com/term-latency/
Not really :)
Consider a VT100. It could only go up to 19200 baud, and couldn't actually handle constant streams at that speed.
However I do agree with the general message of the article. Current UX is a mess, websites are overblown by tons of javascript. There's no reason there should be loading spinners in this day and age with the power we have at our fingertips.