Post by dave on May 19, 2014 8:00:51 GMT -5
While copying files for backup this morning it occurred to me I was wondering about the same Windows silliness that I had wondered about since I got my first "Windows Class" desktop in 1994 ... fully twenty years ago. Why can't Windows be more sophisticated with the "Minutes Remaining" fill bar? It's the little graphic device that tells you there are 12 minutes remaining as you load files for a program installation or copy files from disk to disk. No, wait a minute. Not 12 minutes, it changed to 18 minutes. Wait. Now it's 7 minutes. OK, now we're cooking ... 6 minutes, 4 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds ... huh? ... 3 minutes? 9 minutes? Hey, what gives?
I've always assumed there is a little man with a short memory inside the machine. And he's telling us the following.
"Well, if the last file took 1.28371 seconds to transfer and they're all the same size, and there are 376 files to go ... let's see, carry the one ... that's about 8 minutes to go. But when the next file is larger and finishes transferring in 2.2782 seconds, "... that's about 14 minutes to go."
The little man has a computer at his complete disposal, for cryin' out loud. Rather than just use a count of files, he could easily assess the total number of bytes to be transferred with a few multiply and divide instructions applied to a byte count total. In fact, a slick Performance guy could fashion an algorithm to assess the total size, system condititions, likelihood of interrupts from other running applications, etc. and come up with a really accurate way to quickly tell us what we want to know. And anyway, if a proper assessment adds a few hundred microseconds to the entire operation, it's worth it. I could go to the kitchen for more coffee if I new it would truly take 11 minutes.
So why is Windows XP still in the dark ages? For the short few weeks I had Windows 8 running here I remember doing a lot of file transfers, but I don't remember shouting "Hurrah, they fixed it!" Of course, I wasn't in a mood friendly to Microsoft during those weeks.
I've always assumed there is a little man with a short memory inside the machine. And he's telling us the following.
"Well, if the last file took 1.28371 seconds to transfer and they're all the same size, and there are 376 files to go ... let's see, carry the one ... that's about 8 minutes to go. But when the next file is larger and finishes transferring in 2.2782 seconds, "... that's about 14 minutes to go."
The little man has a computer at his complete disposal, for cryin' out loud. Rather than just use a count of files, he could easily assess the total number of bytes to be transferred with a few multiply and divide instructions applied to a byte count total. In fact, a slick Performance guy could fashion an algorithm to assess the total size, system condititions, likelihood of interrupts from other running applications, etc. and come up with a really accurate way to quickly tell us what we want to know. And anyway, if a proper assessment adds a few hundred microseconds to the entire operation, it's worth it. I could go to the kitchen for more coffee if I new it would truly take 11 minutes.
So why is Windows XP still in the dark ages? For the short few weeks I had Windows 8 running here I remember doing a lot of file transfers, but I don't remember shouting "Hurrah, they fixed it!" Of course, I wasn't in a mood friendly to Microsoft during those weeks.