Ask Slashdot: Why Is It So Hard To Make An Accurate Progress Bar? 736
hyperorbiter writes "How come after 25 years in the tech industry, someone hasn't worked out how to make accurate progress bars? This migration I'm doing has sat on 'less than a minute' for over 30 minutes. I'm not an engineer; is it really that hard?"
it's because (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably patented (Score:4, Funny)
There's probably a pantent for a "method or apparatus for an accurate display of progress", nobody wants to mess with that (but seriously most of my innacurate progress bars deal with unpredictable things like I/O, or non-uniform sets like loading textures and meshes and animations all together, so who knows how much time it will actually take to process the same ammount of data?)
Re:no, it's easy. (Score:5, Funny)
Physics! (Score:5, Funny)
You can work out where you are (% completed) or how fast you are going (rate at which the progress bar is growing), but not both at the same time.
It's simple quantum mechanics.
Re:Can't Go Backwards (Score:5, Funny)
You mean like this one? http://xkcd.com/612/ [xkcd.com].
We will have .... (Score:5, Funny)
No, wait. It seems to have stalled.
Re:Can't Go Backwards (Score:5, Funny)
I think I prefer going backwards to what I once saw on (what I remember as) a Microsoft Office installation, probably 15 years ago. The progress bar ever so slowly crept upwards...98, 99, 100% done...then 101, and so on. It finally locked up somewhere after 140%.
Re:Can't Go Backwards (Score:5, Funny)
Solved Ages Ago (Score:4, Funny)
This problem was solved a long time ago... I still wonder why people don't know how to code a proper progress bar...
HOWTO:
I've left out the easy stuff but this provides for a 99% correct est. Please note that the computer must be from 1 year in the future for this to exceed 87% correctness without causing time dilation within progress meter by blocks remaining^66 msecs. Check Mfg date at start and adjust time est accordingly.
The above is copy-written and my not be used....
Re:Can't Go Backwards (Score:5, Funny)
Sure step 5 of 12 might take way longer then the rest but at least it is honest. It also helps to tell the user what it is currently doing.
Reticulating splines?