On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 02:01:14PM -0700, Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
No, blame UNIX. UNIX is the wrong one is this instance.
In human-computer interaction, anything which takes longer than .1 seconds
causes the human brain to notice. At that point, status becomes a
necessity.
I think the time might be a little longer than 0.1 seconds, but definitely
less than 1 second. Git tried 2 seconds, and it was driving Linus batty
thinking that something had hung or crashed. Most git commands now print
out status after a few tenths of a second so you can tell something is
happening.
One of my criteria for backup software is meaningful progress indication.
I'm using 'tar' now, and it goes through the 'buffer' program, which at
least prints the data transferred and the speed.
Progress can be difficult to get right. A progress meter that quickly
moves to 99% and then stays there for a long time isn't very helpful, nor
is one that jumps backward periodically. There are certainly plenty of
those.
Windows also has annoying animated progress indicators. People realize
they need to animate the progress indicator, but instead of tying it to
something that is actually making progress, they set a timer to animate it.
So basically, it keeps running, even if everything has hung. Real useful
there.
David
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