5 ms·

> People are talking about "lag" and performance, as if this was a "the system can't handle it!" issue. This is a misleading description. Lag doesn't necessari

> People are talking about "lag" and performance, as if this was a "the system can't handle it!" issue. This is a misleading description. Lag doesn't necessarily have anything to do with performance. I really don't think people are talking about performance at all. No one would seriously think that a modern smartphone could be dwarfed by a 35 year old calculator in terms of raw performance.

im3w1l 9y ago
Well everything nowadays is slowed down by the 20 abstraction layers, so I wouldn't be that surprised if someone managed to make one slower than a 35 year old calculator.
- krapp 9y ago
  Maybe we should start worrying about "animation creep" as much as we do feature creep or other kinds of unnecessary complexity.
  - smt88 9y ago
    One of the main reasons I don't use iOS or macOS anymore is because of the animations. Even very, very short animations make the whole experience excruciating for me. It feels slow and unresponsive.
    - krisdol 9y ago
      So what do you use instead? FYI you can reduce animation in the accessibility menu of both iOS and OSX
      - smt88 9y ago
        When I had a choice, I used Fedora + XFCE for a long time, then Xubuntu. I've been on Windows 10 since it came out, and it's been incredibly liberating not to constantly have to think about my OS and Google my way through its quirks and bugs. It also takes about 20 seconds to disable all animations in Windows, which makes it feel as snappy as XFCE (even on my 5-year-old machine). For what I do now (Office, email, programming using IDE hooked into Docker containers), it really doesn't hinder me to be on a non-*nix OS.
    - rikkus 9y ago
      One reason I moved from Android to Windows phone was because of the massively unpredictable performance (lag due to background stuff happening). One reason I moved from Windows phone was the massive delay in switching apps. Now on iPhone the animations are annoying, yes, but they are at least consistent in length, meaning I expect them and know how long to take a (tiny) pause. I know some work is happening that’s being disguised and that’s why they can’t (all) be turned off.
- SilasX 9y ago
  Every day I experience lag typing something into glitzy web apps because someone made the text box wait for something it doesn't really need to. It's definitely slower than word processors I've used twenty years ago.
- ateesdalejr 9y ago
  True, there are so many layers things aren't up to par. Maybe get back down to basics with languages like Rust and rewrite a few things? But then we'll end up with 20 layers or so of abstraction after 20 more years...
qq66 9y ago
I could seriously think that. A pocket calculator has a ~200KHz processor and an LCD with an update time of maybe 10ms. A single digit calculator operation like addition would be a few clock cycles, so say a total time of 15ms with output buffering. A 60Hz monitor refresh rate is already worse than that without considering the framework stack.
- exikyut 9y ago
  Do you have a source on that clock speed? I've been trying to dig up info on pocket calculators for a while. (The last time I brushed-but-didn't-quite-hit some interesting info was in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136939, which I quoted (very tangentially, as a footnote) in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15153262. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15153262.)

im3w1l 9y ago

Well everything nowadays is slowed down by the 20 abstraction layers, so I wouldn't be that surprised if someone managed to make one slower than a 35 year old calculator.

krapp 9y ago
Maybe we should start worrying about "animation creep" as much as we do feature creep or other kinds of unnecessary complexity.
- smt88 9y ago
  One of the main reasons I don't use iOS or macOS anymore is because of the animations. Even very, very short animations make the whole experience excruciating for me. It feels slow and unresponsive.
  - krisdol 9y ago
    So what do you use instead? FYI you can reduce animation in the accessibility menu of both iOS and OSX
    - smt88 9y ago
      When I had a choice, I used Fedora + XFCE for a long time, then Xubuntu. I've been on Windows 10 since it came out, and it's been incredibly liberating not to constantly have to think about my OS and Google my way through its quirks and bugs. It also takes about 20 seconds to disable all animations in Windows, which makes it feel as snappy as XFCE (even on my 5-year-old machine). For what I do now (Office, email, programming using IDE hooked into Docker containers), it really doesn't hinder me to be on a non-*nix OS.
  - rikkus 9y ago
    One reason I moved from Android to Windows phone was because of the massively unpredictable performance (lag due to background stuff happening). One reason I moved from Windows phone was the massive delay in switching apps. Now on iPhone the animations are annoying, yes, but they are at least consistent in length, meaning I expect them and know how long to take a (tiny) pause. I know some work is happening that’s being disguised and that’s why they can’t (all) be turned off.
SilasX 9y ago
Every day I experience lag typing something into glitzy web apps because someone made the text box wait for something it doesn't really need to. It's definitely slower than word processors I've used twenty years ago.
ateesdalejr 9y ago
True, there are so many layers things aren't up to par. Maybe get back down to basics with languages like Rust and rewrite a few things? But then we'll end up with 20 layers or so of abstraction after 20 more years...

qq66 9y ago

I could seriously think that. A pocket calculator has a ~200KHz processor and an LCD with an update time of maybe 10ms. A single digit calculator operation like addition would be a few clock cycles, so say a total time of 15ms with output buffering. A 60Hz monitor refresh rate is already worse than that without considering the framework stack.

exikyut 9y ago
Do you have a source on that clock speed? I've been trying to dig up info on pocket calculators for a while. (The last time I brushed-but-didn't-quite-hit some interesting info was in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136939, which I quoted (very tangentially, as a footnote) in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15153262. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15153262.)