32 ms·

> But why is slow bad? Fast software is not always good software, but slow software is rarely able to rise to greatness. Fast software gives the user a chance t

by jt2190 4y ago

> But why is slow bad? Fast software is not always good software, but slow software is rarely able to rise to greatness. Fast software gives the user a chance to “meld” with its toolset. That is, not break flow. When the nerds upon Nerd Hill fight to the death over Vi and Emacs, it’s partly because they have such a strong affinity for the flow of the application and its meldiness. They have invested. The Tool Is Good, so they feel. Not breaking flow is an axiom of great tools. To add some hard data to this, the “eight second rule” [1][2] is the maximum amount of time a user, on average, of a system can wait for that system to return control back to the user without the user having some other thought pop into their brain, interrupting their flow. [1] Response Times: 3 Important Limits (2010) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-limits/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-... says it’s more like ten seconds [2] Website Response Times (2010) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-response-times/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-response-times/ [3] The Need for Speed, 23 Years Later (2020) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-need-for-speed/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-need-for-speed/ Edit: Added reference Edit 2: Additional reference Edit 3: One more reference Edit 4: I think there are still many many opportunities to improve flow in many processes. Top of my list would be keeping compile times in the single-digit seconds.

RedShift1 4y ago
That reference is from 1993... I think people's attention span has shortened since then...
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > I think people's attention span has shortened since then... Unlikely. Rather, what I think has happened is that as the internet keeps filling up with more and more trash, we have been forced into being harsher with our willingness to pay attention to any one specific thing. In other words, it’s not the attention span that has changed. It’s the signal to noise ratio that keeps getting worse and worse. And that’s why you need to demonstrate value to your audience quickly or otherwise they will move on to the next thing. But don’t blame the audience for that. Blame the producers of the content.
- jt2190 4y ago
  What you’re calling “attention span” is probably more accurately called “user expectations”, or “user patience” which, obviously, can easily change. On the other hand, there seems to be a measurably consistent maximum amount of time that one can tolerate a pause without also breaking out of flow. This might be cultural, but it seems to be consistent enough that it could be physiological.
- Tempest1981 4y ago
  Agreed, 140 char replies instead of paragraphs, and rapidly scrolling TikTok videos. We need that dopamine.
- kaba0 4y ago
  That’s a myth: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790.amp
auggierose 4y ago
A friend of mine has a very interesting view with regards to flow: It is a bad thing. You don't want to be in a state of flow, because you are not thinking hard enough about what you are doing then, but just following the flow.
- omnicognate 4y ago
  I don't think I'd go as far as to claim flow is bad, but there's something to that. I'm a long term emacs user and between changing keyboards a few times and an unfortunate spell of a few years using an IntelliJ-based IDE with Emacs Keybindings that are far better than most but inevitably off (most infuriatingly, to conclude an incremental search you use Ctrl-g, which in actual emacs jumps you back to where you started the search) my reflexes are all over the place. I'm therefore having to force myself to slow down and be consciously aware of everything I do. I'm finding it a really useful exercise for more than just the retraining aspect. It does seem to increase my overall engagement with the task I'm carrying out, beyond just the operation of the tool.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Being in the flow is not being on automatic. It's the absolute opposite, you are totally conscious about what you are doing, and clear headed about the decisions you make. It does feel effortless, but not in the sense that you are not doing the thing consciously, rather in the sense that the thing seems so obvious and easy as you perform in perfect fluidity.
- randiRando 4y ago
  That is a very _interesting_ take. I think it's ~wrong but, like most interesting takes, there's some truth to it. I think the "truth" here is that, well yeah you're not thinking about some things, that's literally what I consider flow, it's not thinking about **how** you're going to do X but it's higher level than that and focusing on "do x". I think it's the difference between thinking/taking the action "walk to the door and open" (X in the flow state) and "ok get up, left leg forward, right leg forward, left leg forward, right leg forward, move arm to door, grab, twist, pull". Flow is just not thinking about the things that are not important (a lot of code is just gluing and can be done in a flow state - still allowing you to stop and think about the real important places). What your friend is calling out is that yeah I guess that sometimes you can "automate"/flow things that actually are important but to be honest I don't think that happens very often in this context (software, real use(r)-cases) because their use-case are usually so narrow and specific (we should design software to allow them to "flow" the unimportant stuff - click next for the additional questions - did you notice the button responds on mouse click up? I hope not, I hope we made that piece "flowable")
coliveira 4y ago
Sadly, the future of software is to become bloated and slow, for business reasons. Any software that is not bloated has fewer features, and can be relatively easily duplicated by a competitor. From a business standpoint, this is bad and a danger for the company survival, as it can now be replaced by a competitor that can crank more features into the product. By adding more features, companies pretty much guarantee that the software will also be slow, at least for a significant number of user cases.
- kragen 4y ago
  as long as free software allows users to choose fast software instead of business software this shouldn't be a problem, but the web browser disaster is an instructive tale of how this can go terribly wrong
  - 7e 4y ago
    - tonto 4y ago
      please don't use disgust to try to explain your opinion, it's gross and appeals to base emotions
  - coliveira 4y ago
    Open source suffers from the same problem I mentioned above. The difference is that the goal is not money but market share.
    - kragen 4y ago
      but at least in theory we can keep using less-featureful versions of open-source software if we like, even fork them i mean people are still using tvtwm, rxvt, and lynx
renox 4y ago
A long time ago, I used vi instead of Emacs because it was much faster. Recently I tried to replace VSCode with something else because VSCode isn't responsive enough.. But vim is annoying to customize as a C++ IDE, so I tried SpaceVim and I discovered that it starts even slower than VSCode :-( so I'm still using VSCode..

by jt2190 4y ago

RedShift1 4y ago

That reference is from 1993... I think people's attention span has shortened since then...

codetrotter 4y ago
> I think people's attention span has shortened since then... Unlikely. Rather, what I think has happened is that as the internet keeps filling up with more and more trash, we have been forced into being harsher with our willingness to pay attention to any one specific thing. In other words, it’s not the attention span that has changed. It’s the signal to noise ratio that keeps getting worse and worse. And that’s why you need to demonstrate value to your audience quickly or otherwise they will move on to the next thing. But don’t blame the audience for that. Blame the producers of the content.
jt2190 4y ago
What you’re calling “attention span” is probably more accurately called “user expectations”, or “user patience” which, obviously, can easily change. On the other hand, there seems to be a measurably consistent maximum amount of time that one can tolerate a pause without also breaking out of flow. This might be cultural, but it seems to be consistent enough that it could be physiological.
Tempest1981 4y ago
Agreed, 140 char replies instead of paragraphs, and rapidly scrolling TikTok videos. We need that dopamine.
kaba0 4y ago
That’s a myth: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790.amp

auggierose 4y ago

A friend of mine has a very interesting view with regards to flow: It is a bad thing. You don't want to be in a state of flow, because you are not thinking hard enough about what you are doing then, but just following the flow.

omnicognate 4y ago
I don't think I'd go as far as to claim flow is bad, but there's something to that. I'm a long term emacs user and between changing keyboards a few times and an unfortunate spell of a few years using an IntelliJ-based IDE with Emacs Keybindings that are far better than most but inevitably off (most infuriatingly, to conclude an incremental search you use Ctrl-g, which in actual emacs jumps you back to where you started the search) my reflexes are all over the place. I'm therefore having to force myself to slow down and be consciously aware of everything I do. I'm finding it a really useful exercise for more than just the retraining aspect. It does seem to increase my overall engagement with the task I'm carrying out, beyond just the operation of the tool.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Being in the flow is not being on automatic. It's the absolute opposite, you are totally conscious about what you are doing, and clear headed about the decisions you make. It does feel effortless, but not in the sense that you are not doing the thing consciously, rather in the sense that the thing seems so obvious and easy as you perform in perfect fluidity.
randiRando 4y ago
That is a very _interesting_ take. I think it's ~wrong but, like most interesting takes, there's some truth to it. I think the "truth" here is that, well yeah you're not thinking about some things, that's literally what I consider flow, it's not thinking about **how** you're going to do X but it's higher level than that and focusing on "do x". I think it's the difference between thinking/taking the action "walk to the door and open" (X in the flow state) and "ok get up, left leg forward, right leg forward, left leg forward, right leg forward, move arm to door, grab, twist, pull". Flow is just not thinking about the things that are not important (a lot of code is just gluing and can be done in a flow state - still allowing you to stop and think about the real important places). What your friend is calling out is that yeah I guess that sometimes you can "automate"/flow things that actually are important but to be honest I don't think that happens very often in this context (software, real use(r)-cases) because their use-case are usually so narrow and specific (we should design software to allow them to "flow" the unimportant stuff - click next for the additional questions - did you notice the button responds on mouse click up? I hope not, I hope we made that piece "flowable")

coliveira 4y ago

Sadly, the future of software is to become bloated and slow, for business reasons. Any software that is not bloated has fewer features, and can be relatively easily duplicated by a competitor. From a business standpoint, this is bad and a danger for the company survival, as it can now be replaced by a competitor that can crank more features into the product. By adding more features, companies pretty much guarantee that the software will also be slow, at least for a significant number of user cases.

kragen 4y ago
as long as free software allows users to choose fast software instead of business software this shouldn't be a problem, but the web browser disaster is an instructive tale of how this can go terribly wrong
- 7e 4y ago
  - tonto 4y ago
    please don't use disgust to try to explain your opinion, it's gross and appeals to base emotions
- coliveira 4y ago
  Open source suffers from the same problem I mentioned above. The difference is that the goal is not money but market share.
  - kragen 4y ago
    but at least in theory we can keep using less-featureful versions of open-source software if we like, even fork them i mean people are still using tvtwm, rxvt, and lynx

renox 4y ago

A long time ago, I used vi instead of Emacs because it was much faster. Recently I tried to replace VSCode with something else because VSCode isn't responsive enough.. But vim is annoying to customize as a C++ IDE, so I tried SpaceVim and I discovered that it starts even slower than VSCode :-( so I'm still using VSCode..