4 ms·

Are rounded rectangles actually hard? Isn't it just a matter of placing 4 quarter circles in the right places? If you can draw straight lines and you can draw

Are rounded rectangles actually hard? Isn't it just a matter of placing 4 quarter circles in the right places? If you can draw straight lines and you can draw ovals (and hence, the special case of circles), then you can draw rounded rects, right?

shasta 16y ago
For the common case of a large rectangle with small radius corners, you can even just draw 3 rectangles and 4 ovals and have a tolerable amount of overlap.
- Someone 16y ago
  Not in this case. One of the variations must only draw an outline of the shape, and one must allow inversion of the pixels.
jonknee 16y ago
Almost everything is hard when you have 128KB of memory and a CPU that does only 8 MHz. Not to mention having to write in assembly.
- Natsu 16y ago
  Yeah, it's far easier on a CAD machine these days. I added that shape to our AutoLisp function library years ago and it only took me a few minutes, including testing.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    It's weird. We haven't sold any of those in months. Today, I had two orders for rounded rectangles at work. I'm 99.99% sure it's coincidence and confirmation bias, but some part of me wonders if this story played any part. But, if anyone in the southwest bought a window or glass table in that shape today, I might have played a part in doing the CAD.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Luxury! (Scottish accent) I remember 48KB of memory and 4 MHz, no lowercase, no multi-tasking, only 40 columns text width, the keys were almost painfully hard to press down and you had to pay for all documentation, what little of it anywhere you could find.
DLWormwood 16y ago
From the comments section of the article… “At MacHack, when most of the original team was there and Andy told this story, Jef Raskin spoke up to say that he had told Steve about round rectangles being everywhere, and that's what got Steve obsessed about them. But what I found interesting was something Bill Atkinson said about creating the RoundRect routines. He said they turned out to be a lot easier to create than he thought they would be. I can't tell you how many times I've over-estimated something easy. I think it's something inherent in computer work.”
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I've had that happen a lot. Something I thought would be very hard turned out to be fairly easy. And vice versa. Happened more when I was younger though. I think with time and experience one's prediction ability evens out a bit.

shasta 16y ago

For the common case of a large rectangle with small radius corners, you can even just draw 3 rectangles and 4 ovals and have a tolerable amount of overlap.

Someone 16y ago
Not in this case. One of the variations must only draw an outline of the shape, and one must allow inversion of the pixels.

jonknee 16y ago

Almost everything is hard when you have 128KB of memory and a CPU that does only 8 MHz. Not to mention having to write in assembly.

Natsu 16y ago
Yeah, it's far easier on a CAD machine these days. I added that shape to our AutoLisp function library years ago and it only took me a few minutes, including testing.
- Natsu 16y ago
  It's weird. We haven't sold any of those in months. Today, I had two orders for rounded rectangles at work. I'm 99.99% sure it's coincidence and confirmation bias, but some part of me wonders if this story played any part. But, if anyone in the southwest bought a window or glass table in that shape today, I might have played a part in doing the CAD.
mkramlich 16y ago
Luxury! (Scottish accent) I remember 48KB of memory and 4 MHz, no lowercase, no multi-tasking, only 40 columns text width, the keys were almost painfully hard to press down and you had to pay for all documentation, what little of it anywhere you could find.

DLWormwood 16y ago

From the comments section of the article… “At MacHack, when most of the original team was there and Andy told this story, Jef Raskin spoke up to say that he had told Steve about round rectangles being everywhere, and that's what got Steve obsessed about them. But what I found interesting was something Bill Atkinson said about creating the RoundRect routines. He said they turned out to be a lot easier to create than he thought they would be. I can't tell you how many times I've over-estimated something easy. I think it's something inherent in computer work.”

mkramlich 16y ago
I've had that happen a lot. Something I thought would be very hard turned out to be fairly easy. And vice versa. Happened more when I was younger though. I think with time and experience one's prediction ability evens out a bit.