[chmsky00]

The problem you’re highlighting is a simple design issue.

My problem with progress bars is they are usually nonsense estimates based upon random programmer choices.

I know former MSers who worked on progress bars for old Windows versions. Specifically I remember them saying the progress bar for copying files to USB was estimating how long until a USB hardware buffer was clear, without any idea how much more data there was intended to be jammed into the buffer once it cleared. Buffer would immediately refill and increase the wait time.

Given how slowly Windows deprecates code, who knows what subroutines any given progress bar is relying on.

They’re nonsense features meant to soothe users who seek progress. They don’t need to be interesting visually. I’d accept a simple countdown that made sense.

I’m hoping manufacture of application specific chips takes off. That we embed a 3D engine into silicon and this “software engineering is life” mind virus can go away.

We simply did not do it that way before because we lacked the manufacturing capabilities.

If manufacturing hopes and dreams of colleagues in the chip biz come to fruition, software is on its way out as a routine part of developing new technology. But I mean they’re biased; attention on hardware versus software makes them more valuable.

[WorldMaker]

I've been starting work on a long rant title "Counting is Harder Than You Think". In general, I think most people think counting is one of the easiest things for computers to do because people learn counting in elementary school and just forever associate it with "easy". (Someone's never asked the elementary school teacher's opinion of that.)

"How hard can it be, it's just a Select Count() in SQL!" Uh, that Count() is possibly doing a ton of work in CPU/IO that the server could be doing for other things, and sure an Index might speed that up, but you can't really index an Index and eventually you get right back to where you can't afford the CPU/IO time.

People just assume computers have exact numbers at all times. Some of that is just a problem of bad UX design ("why are we showing a meaningless estimate number like 1,492,631 and not 'about a Million things to do'?"), but so much of it just seems to be that people think counting is easy.

[spookthesunset]

If we are gonna bitch about progress bars, Microsoft’s are almost always the worst. So many of them get to 99% and them stall out… dunno how they get their progress bars so bad.

[WorldMaker]

The problem isn't Microsoft. The problem is that progress bars are the worst way to indicate progress ever invented except for all the other terrible ways to indicate progress we've invented. Percentage numbers are always a lie and shouldn't even be shown, but some people like the soothing comfort of "number go big".

[bmn__]

> I know former MSers who worked on progress bars for old Windows versions.

https://explainxkcd.com/612

[chmsky00]

Yep. That was around the time I worked with those folks.

I would not be surprised if the topic came up because of that comic.