06:17 pm, 1 Dec 03
craftsmanship
JoelOnSoftware's latest article on Craftsmanship leaves me oddly vindicated. It discusses (in a somewhat self-important way, I might add) the pain he took to make a lengthy "load file" dialog include a progress meter.
Iwasted spent a significant amount of time designing LogJam's "network processing" dialog because I hate it when apps block. (There's a picture of it on the LogJam tour page.) It's gone through multiple incarnations, from threads (yikes) to pipes between multiple processes (which Joel also picked), and then to even more abstraction for lengthy processes that span multiple network requests (the journal backup dialog). It even includes some fancy SVG support so that the animation rotates smoothly (it looks rad and is entirely useless, I assure you).
98% of the time you never see the dialog, because stuff happens too quickly. The other 2% it's wonderful to be able to watch a transfer go (loading your huge friends list over a modem) or cancel a request (LiveJournal hiccup?). It's probably the part of the program I'm most proud of, even though it (like all of it) kinda sucks.
PS: It's weird to see the needless jabs at Unix users at the end of that article. I see it a lot from Windows/Mac devotees (though less recently from the Mac-o-philes, because now it's always "elegant Unix underpinnings" etc. Though they still manage to stab at GUIs and such). Joel does it a lot, or at least enough that I notice it, but forgive him because he's frustrated with dealing with such an frustrating and useless operating system. :P
(PPS: I have written a lot of Windows code, even some professionally, so I am somewhat justified in saying that.)
I
98% of the time you never see the dialog, because stuff happens too quickly. The other 2% it's wonderful to be able to watch a transfer go (loading your huge friends list over a modem) or cancel a request (LiveJournal hiccup?). It's probably the part of the program I'm most proud of, even though it (like all of it) kinda sucks.
PS: It's weird to see the needless jabs at Unix users at the end of that article. I see it a lot from Windows/Mac devotees (though less recently from the Mac-o-philes, because now it's always "elegant Unix underpinnings" etc. Though they still manage to stab at GUIs and such). Joel does it a lot, or at least enough that I notice it, but forgive him because he's frustrated with dealing with such an frustrating and useless operating system. :P
(PPS: I have written a lot of Windows code, even some professionally, so I am somewhat justified in saying that.)
Windows quotes
"Working with Unix is like wrestling a worthy opponent. Working with Windows is like attacking a small whining child who is carrying a .38." -- Puck"Using Windows as a networking tool is like hunting buffalo with a plastic spoon." -- TTK Ciar
You're not alone. :)
Re: Windows quotes
I mean, Unix (Linux is all I really know) certainly has its flaws. It's just sorta uncomfortable to see people taking potshots at it. (Similiarly for the "M$" Linux kids.)It's like middle click is just sending the text widget a "please paste" event and the text widget pastes where the text input is?
At least that's what I'd assumed.
I just pissed off and yell at GTK/Linux/X/fontconfig/whatever I'm mad at that day. I never blame Evan. :-)
And LogJam is even nicer on Fedora Core 1 (Which includes all the extra libs).
As for jabs at UNIX users (Since I haven't read the article and after what you've said about it, I'm not sure I want to waste the time), is he referring to UNIX in general or Linux specifically?
I don't see the problem with progress...
I didn't really understand that part of the article... I don't see the problem. Pass an (optional) pointer to an object derived from 'ProgressIndicator' or something, and have your routine call a 'Progress(int inProgress)' style function, euhm, routinely ;-)Doing gui? Derive your progress bar from 'ProgressIndicator' and done (or derive something else and have that update your progress bar). Doing something else that needs update info in a file? derive from 'ProgressIndicator' and implement it's functions to write to a file...
The unix jabs are not that bad, and do represent the unix "guru's", I think. The people who like the command line and hate the graphics interface. Can't really blame 'em, but I do understand that many (if not most) people don't actually want to take a five year course to use a computer program, so a gui isn't all that bad. Anyway, that's what I think the jabbing is about... Plus a bit of retaliation for all the jabs that come the other way, anytime you meet a unix guy/girl. They default to 'windows is crap'. That was true a few years ago, but apart from patching, I don't really reboot my xp system at all anymore, so it's not true anymore, afaik. Mac's are another story, I personally believe osx is at the level of win95 or something (as far as stability goes), but maybe that's just me.
Re: I don't see the problem with progress...
In a GUI, you generally can't do a blocking operation (such as anything that uses a progress indicator) because no matter how often you callback Progress(), the UI won't repaint/respond if the events come in at the wrong time. It's not so bad for Windows, where a lot of the drawing is done "server-side", but for an X app, especially one where buttons prelight when you mouseover them, it's fatal.Unfortunately, the only way to do it properly is via a thread or a fork.
Re: I don't see the problem with progress...
On windows at least, you can just call a function that runs the message loop/a limited message loop (e.g. drawing stuff only) I seem to remember, no?