Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

craigmod.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#51

Post by gmm1990 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #30
ungreased0675 wrote: post #16

I run headless Alpine Linux (a minimal distro) in my homelab and it’s fast AF. The lag in Windows Explorer is sad when something like cd folder/folder is instant in Linux.

I really don't understand how you can even create software that feels as bad to use as Windows Explorer. It's like it's barely attached to reality. There's this weird floaty delay in everything. You copy a file, or did you? You're not sure. It hasn't updated yet. Oh, now the copy dialog appears with this progress bar that isn't showing progress. The dialog just sits there. Is something happening? I don't know. Many s…

It’s probably got phone home a few times to to make sure they’re measuring user engagement

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#54

Post by rurban »

hansvm wrote: post #45
ivanjermakov wrote: post #21

> Google Maps has gotten so slow When it comes to navigating (except public transit), hiking, and route building, Organic Maps[1] is very good. OSM data and offline-first is the way forward for detailed and _fast_ map experience. For cycling route building I have to mention BRouter[2], which allows you to write a custom cost function that is used to tweak your route preferences. [1]: https://organicmaps.app/ [2]: htt…

I remember an engineer I talked to recently saying that OSM didn't have sufficiently up-to-date data for their routing use case -- new roads, closed roads, traffic data, etc. Is that the case?

No. It's their route function which sucks compared to Google maps. Their data is better and newer.

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#55

Post by kazinator »

archargelod wrote: post #38
countWSS wrote: post #34

The neglected part here is latency, speed itself can be masked by progress bars/animations, but having visible lag ruins the idea of speed and users treat it as slow vs animated loading bar.

Maybe it's me who's weird, but I find animations as much worse - it's basically pointless and wastes slightly more time (even when program is fast enough!). The interface without animations feels snappier even if sometimes it takes a second to load. I disable any and all animations in software that I can - particularly in Android (via developer settings) and Linux (i3+vim vs something like KDE+VScode).

Some tiny amount of animation is needed to show that the system has responded.

I regularly use a website in which a submit button does not change state in any way. It is indistinguishable from the click having gone to /dev/null. And the completion of the action takes a copule of seconds.

It's literally, "no response ... few seconds ... oh, done!"

If the button simply responded in the usual way, like 3d poppin in and out effect, it would be better. The UI can change state also to show some "wait ..." text.

These are examples of animations, just not progressive/persistent.

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#57

Post by dmurray »

rurban wrote: post #54
hansvm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember an engineer I talked to recently saying that OSM didn't have sufficiently up-to-date data for their routing use case -- new roads, closed roads, traffic data, etc. Is that the case?

No. It's their route function which sucks compared to Google maps. Their data is better and newer.

Isn't OSM the data layer, and people are free to build apps on top of it?

"The data is better than Google maps, it just needs a better routing algorithm" should be catnip to a certain class of OS dev. If it's really true, I'll take a crack at it myself!

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#58

Post by rurban »

dmurray wrote: post #57
rurban wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's their route function which sucks compared to Google maps. Their data is better and newer.

Isn't OSM the data layer, and people are free to build apps on top of it? "The data is better than Google maps, it just needs a better routing algorithm" should be catnip to a certain class of OS dev. If it's really true, I'll take a crack at it myself!

Do it! Google routing is open source in or-tools

Re: Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

#60

Post by snek_case »

kazinator wrote: post #53

If the software is fast as a byproduct of being simple, that tends to align with correctness. If it is fast because it is optimized, then that does not align with correctness, because optimizing something that works only adds risk.

Simple software is also easier to optimize. The simpler it is, the less weird corner cases you have to deal with.
Post reply on HN