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

Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 124 posts

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#61

Post by movedx »

mschuster91 wrote: post #57
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are in a different era now, where desktop apps are written in JS. Performance is implicitly thrown out of the window(s) when compared to software written for control over every bit of CPU and memory usage.

But the JS ecosystem learns things! They implement tree shaking and other stuff to improve performance! Obviously real programmers learned all this decades ago - same for the "NoSQL" followers who after years of struggling with piles of cr.p finally (re)discover what a true ACID-capable database is... I'm just waiting for the JS world to rediscover threads and proper multitasking, but given the track record I don't e…

You'll probably get down-voted for your choice of language, but I agree.

I actually feel what's going to happen is the JS community will start implementing WebASM and other very low-level mechanism to improve the speed of slow software components and, given enough time, will eventually just have entire binary applications being delivered through the browser (automatically installed, without asking you.)

We'll go from `yum install software-suite` to `https://www.software-suite.com/` and the results will be the same. We'll have gone full circle.

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#62

Post by dogecoinbase »

milesrout wrote: post #49
huxley wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Chrome or Firefox support HLS on the desktop despite providing support on mobile (since Android 3.0 I believe). They have categorically refused to add desktop support, if you have any complaints I would take it up with them.

Why would they support a closed, proprietary format when there exist better, open ones?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming#Server_imp...

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#63

Post by digi_owl »

Nition wrote: post #30
valuearb wrote: post #26

I worked on a visual programming language in late 80s. It would compile it's programs but the compiler was really slow, took minutes for small programs. We worked on optimizing it but couldn't find much to optimize. Then the founder took out the code that updated the progress bar as it compiled and compiles finished 10x faster. This was on Mac Plus.

Meanwhile in 2016: https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/11283

Truly seems like those that do not learn from history is forced to relive it...

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#64

Post by frozenport »

mschuster91 wrote: post #57
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are in a different era now, where desktop apps are written in JS. Performance is implicitly thrown out of the window(s) when compared to software written for control over every bit of CPU and memory usage.

But the JS ecosystem learns things! They implement tree shaking and other stuff to improve performance! Obviously real programmers learned all this decades ago - same for the "NoSQL" followers who after years of struggling with piles of cr.p finally (re)discover what a true ACID-capable database is... I'm just waiting for the JS world to rediscover threads and proper multitasking, but given the track record I don't e…

But C++ GUI toolkits are disaster. While any kid can put together a reasonable looking JS app, the default options in toolkits like Qt are junk. Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there. Quickly, you're going to have to custom build every widget. Then you need to hire engineers to manually press all the buttons. These engineers won't be too good at art stuff, so guess what, now you need to hire graphic designers - many of whom aren't familiar with Qt. You're best bet is to pay a consulting company tons of money to make a GUI, which you will struggle to keep updated. Even with unlimited cash, the lead time for this is unjustifiable.

Do customers really want to trade performance for actual money? Are people still browsing the fatweb?

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#65

Post by mschuster91 »

frozenport wrote: post #64
mschuster91 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the JS ecosystem learns things! They implement tree shaking and other stuff to improve performance! Obviously real programmers learned all this decades ago - same for the "NoSQL" followers who after years of struggling with piles of cr.p finally (re)discover what a true ACID-capable database is... I'm just waiting for the JS world to rediscover threads and proper multitasking, but given the track record I don't e…

But C++ GUI toolkits are disaster. While any kid can put together a reasonable looking JS app, the default options in toolkits like Qt are junk. Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there. Quickly, you're going to have to custom build every widget. Then you need to hire engineers to manually press all the buttons. These engineers won't be too good at art stuff, so guess what, now you need to hire graphic…

> Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there

Well, browsers didn't have proper vertical centering for UI elements for ages, too. Not to mention it's between a PITA and impossible to do "simple" things like styling a file upload button (only works via pseudo CSS on Chrome) or cross-browser styling of a scrollbar (usually people tend to handroll JS stuff, which is expectedly slow and unintuitive).

> You're best bet is to pay a consulting company tons of money to make a GUI, which you will struggle to keep updated.

It's the same in the Web sphere, with the added difference of clients not simply accepting "you cannot style a file upload button/input element cross-browser-like", they will usually answer you something along "it's the Web and HTML5 after all!!!". You will always need specialized engineers, designers and UX designers for a well-working app, no matter if native or web.

(But yes I agree with you that C++ GUI toolkits are a desaster, especially when cross-platform! And especially the build tooling coughs at autotools)

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#66

Post by LeoNatan25 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #65
frozenport wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But C++ GUI toolkits are disaster. While any kid can put together a reasonable looking JS app, the default options in toolkits like Qt are junk. Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there. Quickly, you're going to have to custom build every widget. Then you need to hire engineers to manually press all the buttons. These engineers won't be too good at art stuff, so guess what, now you need to hire graphic…

> Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there Well, browsers didn't have proper vertical centering for UI elements for ages, too. Not to mention it's between a PITA and impossible to do "simple" things like styling a file upload button (only works via pseudo CSS on Chrome) or cross-browser styling of a scrollbar (usually people tend to handroll JS stuff, which is expectedly slow and unintuitive). > You're…

What saddens me is that instead of improving the web software development process with tried and tested methodologies, the inverse happened, and the web and its terrible software ecosystems and perpetrators are somehow seen as the "cool kids" of software development. When observer pattern is seen as the holy grail of modern web development, you know we are in trouble.

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#67

Post by mschuster91 »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #66
mschuster91 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there Well, browsers didn't have proper vertical centering for UI elements for ages, too. Not to mention it's between a PITA and impossible to do "simple" things like styling a file upload button (only works via pseudo CSS on Chrome) or cross-browser styling of a scrollbar (usually people tend to handroll JS stuff, which is expectedly slow and unintuitive). > You're…

What saddens me is that instead of improving the web software development process with tried and tested methodologies, the inverse happened, and the web and its terrible software ecosystems and perpetrators are somehow seen as the "cool kids" of software development. When observer pattern is seen as the holy grail of modern web development, you know we are in trouble.

"Tried and tested" cannot be sold for money (as it's already known).

So in order to create demand for consultants the ecosystem repeats history and willfully messes up... and we all know where the consultantocracy finally ended up goes looking at Enterprise FizzBuzz

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#68

Post by draw_down »

phkahler wrote: post #4

On a more practical note, why would you want to have seconds on the clock? I find that most of the time I don't want to know the time to a precision of better than 5 minutes. That may just be me, but when someone asks the time and I read it off my phone as 3:56 it really bothers me and sometimes I convert that to 5-to-4 just to avoid what in most cases is arbitrary extra precision. Sure there are times when minutes c…

I mean, come on. It's a clock! Surely seconds are relevant.

I understand that everyone might not want to see them, but this isn't a great argument for leaving off a feature that is surely useful in other circumstances. The article is interesting, but I don't think these sort of technical explanations Chen gets into should be accepted as valid reasons to leave out a feature. They're interesting in context, but we should all be able to recognize that showing seconds is a good feature for a clock. Even the team in question would have left the feature in if it had performed OK at the time, which indicates they agreed with its utility.

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#69

Post by coin »

phkahler wrote: post #4

On a more practical note, why would you want to have seconds on the clock? I find that most of the time I don't want to know the time to a precision of better than 5 minutes. That may just be me, but when someone asks the time and I read it off my phone as 3:56 it really bothers me and sometimes I convert that to 5-to-4 just to avoid what in most cases is arbitrary extra precision. Sure there are times when minutes c…

> why would you want to have seconds on the clock?

* Timing things, such as software execution

* Starting a phone interview on time

* Timing a trade just before the market closes

Re: Why doesn’t the clock in the taskbar display seconds? (2003)

#70

Post by simion314 »

frozenport wrote: post #64
mschuster91 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the JS ecosystem learns things! They implement tree shaking and other stuff to improve performance! Obviously real programmers learned all this decades ago - same for the "NoSQL" followers who after years of struggling with piles of cr.p finally (re)discover what a true ACID-capable database is... I'm just waiting for the JS world to rediscover threads and proper multitasking, but given the track record I don't e…

But C++ GUI toolkits are disaster. While any kid can put together a reasonable looking JS app, the default options in toolkits like Qt are junk. Common features like centering a QComboBox aren't there. Quickly, you're going to have to custom build every widget. Then you need to hire engineers to manually press all the buttons. These engineers won't be too good at art stuff, so guess what, now you need to hire graphic…

From what I remember centering in Qt is possible and easy. Why would you need designers to know, Qt, they will show you a picture and you implement that. hopefully they don't want elliptic windows with elliptic buttons with animated shiny/metalic colors and animated shadows, you can get that but you may need to create custom widgets. Don't even compare a GUI Listbox or similar widget that can handle 10000 items because it smart to create and paint only visible stuff and the html DOM UL/OL that can't handle so many items, and you have to implement the smart list yourself. Same with DataGrids , for html you probably need to buy some code that has part of the functionality present in normal GUI toolkits.
Post reply on HN