On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 10:21:07AM -0700, Gus Wirth wrote:
Close but not quite. The reason we want feedback is because computers are UNRELIABLE. Between the fact that a lot of software is crap and can freeze without warning or you gave the computer a problem that can't be solved in your lifetime, it's nice to know if something useful is happening vs just being stuck in an infinite loop.
I think we would need feedback on long operations even if computers never failed. The real world are brains interact with gives feedback, and we need that from computers as well. Working with programs that don't give feedback requires effort to learn. Even things like typing require feedback. Typing passwords with no echo takes getting used to. That's why a lot of things echo '*' characters. I've learned to not just start killing programs when they don't respond. I usually go to another terminal and run top or ps. But, if the program gave feedback, I wouldn't have to do even that. David -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
