undefined | Better HN

0 pointsalkonaut3y ago0 comments

Let's take another example. E.g. if you have a progress bar for doing a set of 5 git operations you don't know whether the 3rd might start some housekeeping. For some tools (such as git) it might be possible to force this automatic housekeeping off in order to make a predicable progress bar. But in others it might not be. In some tools you may be able to predict if it will happen, and in others maybe not.

Another example (from the real world this time): I make a progress bar for an iterative optimization of an design in a program. The number of iterations until the design completes can't be reliably estimated. It's not completely underterministic of course, but the complexity of making that estimation isn't just high, it's likely to be so high that it approaches the complexity of the optimization itself.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

moring3y ago

Your second paragraph is basically what I meant: The complexity is just too high. This is especially true when downloading data from the internet is involved.

But the first example, git housekeeping, depends only on information readily available locally. git could just give this information to any calling program that needs it, but my guess is that nobody thinks that progress bars are worth it.

Actually, in today's world, I'd be happy if progress bars (or even indefinite loading indicators) would even show me when the process has crashed and won't ever finish, but they'll happily show "progress" that will never finish.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse