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Using computers more freely and safely

akkartik.name

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Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#61

Post by lambdaxymox »

vctrnk wrote: post #42

(bit of a rant here, you've been warned) As someone who could've developed an IT/programming career, but didn't because I felt things were already bloating back in the '00s, I agree with the majority: "harvesting your own food" can be rewarding but also a tedious and thankless job. It's certainly not for everyone, but if it works for some people then it is (let's put efficiency aside for a moment) perfectly valid. In…

For sure among the hardest problems in software engineering are versioning dependencies, and managing dependencies. At least those are the two I find the most aggravating. It seems like almost nobody can get it right even though component-based software engineering, SoA, etc. I think are generally extremely good ideas. The execution is pretty crummy pretty much everywhere.

With all that said, my sense is that hardware engineering has its own heap of Sisyphean problems and complexities. I definitely would not go back to working on hardware engineering problems like I did super early in my career (a mix of embedded firmware, device drivers, PCB design, and web development). I shudder at the thought of ever working with anything Verilog/VHDL, Xilinx, or SPICE ever again, or debugging PCB designs on the bench top in the lab with an oscilloscope and a logic probe. At least in school I ran more than a few bodge wires to patch a mistake in a PCB design iteration. Maybe in some sense, it's a blessing that those linear systems theory abstractions fall apart utterly in RF engineering problems, and one has to contend with the fact that all circuits radiate. At least circuits that still contain the magic smoke.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#62

Post by Aerbil313 »

lambdaxymox wrote: post #61
vctrnk wrote: post #42

(bit of a rant here, you've been warned) As someone who could've developed an IT/programming career, but didn't because I felt things were already bloating back in the '00s, I agree with the majority: "harvesting your own food" can be rewarding but also a tedious and thankless job. It's certainly not for everyone, but if it works for some people then it is (let's put efficiency aside for a moment) perfectly valid. In…

For sure among the hardest problems in software engineering are versioning dependencies, and managing dependencies. At least those are the two I find the most aggravating. It seems like almost nobody can get it right even though component-based software engineering, SoA, etc. I think are generally extremely good ideas. The execution is pretty crummy pretty much everywhere. With all that said, my sense is that hardwar…

I believe nix is the logical solution to dependency management and thus is the future of it.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#64

Post by [deleted] »

cxr wrote: post #46
halicarnassus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dan Luu's post, which I also read months ago, is very detailed, has a lot of data, but fails to make sense or come to a helpful conclusion in the end. Like so many of his posts. With helpful conclusion I don't mean just stating the facts or comparing transistors or input latency with network latency. As if developers stopped caring and created crappy software on purpose. The post compares an Apple 2e, which is a sing…

> The post compares an Apple 2e, which is a single-tasking OS that just displays the pressed key in the basic interpreter on the screen, and modern devices, where it is not always clear, what kind of app or setup is being used. But we know, that it's plenty of layers of GUI and OS code, that most people don't want to miss. Not to mention, that mot of the higher input lag is not detectable by humans in normal work con…

[deleted]

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#65

Post by BlueTemplar »

halicarnassus wrote: post #31
naasking wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we know, that it's plenty of layers of GUI and OS code, that most people don't want to miss. You're missing the main point: you're just assuming that we must trade those features for improved latency, but this is just not true. The properties he measured are a result of particular architectural and abstraction choices, but other choices could be made that don't necessarily require such sacrifices. For instance,…

I'm not assuming that we must trade those features for improved latency. It is a possibility, but there are always alternatives. Unfortunately in IT you always trade one set of problems for another. And clean architectures have to be watered down with time to stay practical. Nobody is smart enough to predict all pros and cons accurately. We're always smarter after the fact. When we have finished a transition and gain…

I have recently seen ridiculously bad and slow smartphone apps, which seem to be so because they are programmed to phone home for every single action even though there is no need to do so.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#66

Post by ccorxi »

akkartik wrote: post #44
vctrnk wrote: post #42

(bit of a rant here, you've been warned) As someone who could've developed an IT/programming career, but didn't because I felt things were already bloating back in the '00s, I agree with the majority: "harvesting your own food" can be rewarding but also a tedious and thankless job. It's certainly not for everyone, but if it works for some people then it is (let's put efficiency aside for a moment) perfectly valid. In…

I was trying to square the same tension in my mind when I made OP. And the compromise I arrived at was, "try to find people with complementary interests to organize with." That's really what "software with thousands of users" boils down to. If programmers who can take the lead when software is still small and approachable, and non-programmers coalesce around their forks rather than upstream, we might slowly evolve to…

Of course we non-programmers want to move away from big corps environments. Here's my 50 cents of what would be ideal for me...modular software, easy to assemble, no code. And if a module is not available, I'd be happy to pay a (reasonable) amount to get it done. All this open source.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#67

Post by akkartik »

ccorxi wrote: post #66
akkartik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to square the same tension in my mind when I made OP. And the compromise I arrived at was, "try to find people with complementary interests to organize with." That's really what "software with thousands of users" boils down to. If programmers who can take the lead when software is still small and approachable, and non-programmers coalesce around their forks rather than upstream, we might slowly evolve to…

Of course we non-programmers want to move away from big corps environments. Here's my 50 cents of what would be ideal for me...modular software, easy to assemble, no code. And if a module is not available, I'd be happy to pay a (reasonable) amount to get it done. All this open source.

Why does open source matter to you? Is it to preserve the option to pay someone to make changes to it?

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#68

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

vctrnk wrote: post #42

(bit of a rant here, you've been warned) As someone who could've developed an IT/programming career, but didn't because I felt things were already bloating back in the '00s, I agree with the majority: "harvesting your own food" can be rewarding but also a tedious and thankless job. It's certainly not for everyone, but if it works for some people then it is (let's put efficiency aside for a moment) perfectly valid. In…

But most software is not 3d movie rendering or AI. Look at the AppStore. 99% of these apps could have been written with 1970's Pascal. 1996s ICQ had 90% of functionality of modern messengers. People just love new things.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#69

Post by seanw444 »

taopai wrote: post #49
juliend2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally I discovered Emacs. Do you mean Emacs with Org-mode? Or just plain Emacs? I'm curious, because I don't know much about Emacs but I heard a lot of good things about Orgmode.

Yes, Emacs with org-mode. In fact, I got into Emacs because I wanted to try org-mode. Org-mode it's just a mode, Emacs has a ton of modes, major and minor. The GNU Emacs Distribution, the Vanilla Emacs, already comes with org-mode. It was six months ago. org-mode blown my mind. It was a transcendental experience, I was thrilled. It had everything I wished and much more. Thanks to it I discovered Emacs and I love it,…

And for those that find the Vim approach to most things preferable, Doom Emacs sets up Emacs + Evil-mode in a way that makes Emacs+Vim feel smooth, and doesn't require really any effort on your part. Big recommend.

Re: Using computers more freely and safely

#70

Post by musicale »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
halicarnassus wrote: post #14

While the premise of the post is interesting, I've stopped reading it when reaching "a computer from 2015 is 2-5 times slower than an Apple 2e from 1986 just at reading a keystroke and displaying it on screen" and only scanned the rest. If oversimplifications are being used to prove a point, the argument becomes weak. I actually read it some months ago, because I'm interested in the smol net, and I use and like the G…

Pity you stopped reading there because that point has some pretty solid support: https://danluu.com/input-lag/

Danluu's study seems to conflict with

https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/

which shows Gvim on Windows with a maximum latency of 1.2ms - much faster than 30ms on the vintage Apple //e or TI 99/4. Even Eclipse, which usually feels slow to me, came in at a max of 20.8ms. (1.2ms seems very fast to me as I would expect ~2ms of average frame latency even on a 240Hz monitor?)

Which study is correct? Are both of them measuring touch-to-display latency?

It's also worth noting that those vintage 8-bit microcomputers typically used CRT TV monitors at 30Hz, while modern monitors often run at 60Hz or 120Hz or more (possibly with asynchronous refresh), so they will have lower frame latency.

While I haven't tested it myself, I believe newer iPad/Apple Pencil 2 combinations have improved their input latency (they claim 9ms but I'm not sure if that's actually end-to-end touch-to-display latency in something like Notes or Procreate.)

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