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Another UI anti-pattern

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  Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-06 23:39 +1000
    Re: Another UI anti-pattern Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2015-09-06 14:35 +0000
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-09-07 08:31 +0300
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-09-09 12:50 +0200
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-10 14:46 -0700
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-10 15:38 -0700
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-10 16:13 -0700
              Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-10 16:32 -0700
                Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-10 21:18 -0700
                  Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-11 03:12 -0700
                Re: Another UI anti-pattern Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-11 14:13 -0700
                  Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-13 09:10 -0700
                    Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-13 16:16 +0000
                      Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-13 10:29 -0700
                    Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-13 10:30 -0700
                      Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-13 11:04 -0700
                        Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-13 11:56 -0700
                          Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-14 05:39 -0700
                            Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-14 08:42 -0700
                              Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-14 13:08 -0700
                              Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-15 08:17 +0000
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-07 09:09 +0000
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-07 04:30 -0700
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-07 16:55 +0000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-08 11:40 +1000
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2015-09-09 04:24 -0700
              Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-10 13:42 +1000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-09-08 01:24 +0200
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2015-09-08 16:56 +0000
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-07 10:35 -0700
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-07 19:00 +0000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-07 14:40 -0700
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Larry Sheldon <lfsheldon@gmail.com> - 2015-09-07 19:51 -0500
              Re: Another UI anti-pattern Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2015-09-09 04:24 -0700
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 02:18 -0300
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-08 08:31 +0000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-08 02:08 -0700
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-08 03:32 -0700
              Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-08 05:14 -0700
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 15:45 -0300
              Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-08 12:50 -0700
                Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 19:46 -0300
                  Re: Another UI anti-pattern fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-09-08 15:56 -0700
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-09-09 12:39 +0200
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-08 03:08 -0700
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-09-08 12:40 +0000
            Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 15:36 -0300
    Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-07 23:30 +1000
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2015-09-07 11:04 -0700
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-08 11:37 +1000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern "Kerr Mudd-John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2015-09-10 09:44 +0100
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 02:06 -0300
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-09-08 08:30 +0000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-09-08 15:19 -0300
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-09-09 12:32 +0200
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-09-09 11:46 +0200
    Re: Another UI anti-pattern Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2015-09-09 21:26 +0300
      Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-10 12:59 +1000
        Re: Another UI anti-pattern Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2015-09-10 08:14 +0100
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2015-09-10 19:06 +1000
          Re: Another UI anti-pattern     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-09-10 03:10 -0700

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#8595 — Another UI anti-pattern

Example here

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html

If you want to search something, you click on the magnifying glass, and 
the field expands to the left, pushing the Developer Console button to 
the left as well.

As a consequence, most of the time when one's actually looking at the 
search field, it's expanded, and occupying the space that the Developer 
Console button occupies for the rest of the time.

Is it any surprise, then, that I keep clicking on the damned Developer 
Console button when I want to search for something? Just to make it 
extra irritating, that button opens a new web page.

Sylvia.

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#8596

On 2015-09-06, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
> Example here
>
> http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html
>
> If you want to search something, you click on the magnifying glass,
> and the field expands to the left, pushing the Developer Console
> button to the left as well.
>
> As a consequence, most of the time when one's actually looking at the
> search field, it's expanded, and occupying the space that the
> Developer Console button occupies for the rest of the time.
>
> Is it any surprise, then, that I keep clicking on the damned Developer
> Console button when I want to search for something? Just to make it
> extra irritating, that button opens a new web page.
>
> Sylvia.

That sort of thing is all over the web.  What is so wrong with having a
'search box' that is always visible and always in the same place?  If
'there is not enough room' then perhaps there's too much going on.

-- 
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers 
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

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#8598

On 2015-09-06 17:35:40 +0300, Whiskers said:

> On 2015-09-06, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
>> Example here
>> Is it any surprise, then, that I keep clicking on the damned Developer
>> Console button when I want to search for something? Just to make it
>> extra irritating, that button opens a new web page.
>> 
>> Sylvia.
> 
> That sort of thing is all over the web.  What is so wrong with having a
> 'search box' that is always visible and always in the same place?  If
> 'there is not enough room' then perhaps there's too much going on.

We've stopped making meaningful progress since we unleashed upon the 
world a whole generation of programmers more focused on form than 
function.  This almost smacks of an attempt to have fun animating the 
GUI, nothing more ...

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#8637

On 2015-09-07, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2015-09-06 17:35:40 +0300, Whiskers said:
>
>> On 2015-09-06, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
>>> Example here
>>> Is it any surprise, then, that I keep clicking on the damned Developer
>>> Console button when I want to search for something? Just to make it
>>> extra irritating, that button opens a new web page.
>>> 
>>> Sylvia.
>> 
>> That sort of thing is all over the web.  What is so wrong with having a
>> 'search box' that is always visible and always in the same place?  If
>> 'there is not enough room' then perhaps there's too much going on.
>
> We've stopped making meaningful progress since we unleashed upon the 
> world a whole generation of programmers more focused on form than 
> function.  This almost smacks of an attempt to have fun animating the 
> GUI, nothing more ...

And, ugh, yesterday brought me a new version of online banking.  It's
been designed to look like a tablet app, complete with light grey text
on a white background.  That brings back painful memories of a laptop
whose screen had deteriorated to the point where low contrast pages were
difficult or impossible to read.  I wouldn't be surprised if many folks
will be affected by this.

One of the main problems with web designers is that they invariably seem
to have the latest flashy kit, and don't even start to consider that
many customers will be using older less capable stuff.

-- 
It's definitely not paranoia when we can all pull out log files full of
people out to get us.

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#8651

On 2015-09-07 05:31:18 +0000, RS Wood said:

> On 2015-09-06 17:35:40 +0300, Whiskers said:
> 
>> On 2015-09-06, Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> wrote:
>>> Example here
>>> Is it any surprise, then, that I keep clicking on the damned Developer
>>> Console button when I want to search for something? Just to make it
>>> extra irritating, that button opens a new web page.
>>> 
>>> Sylvia.
>> 
>> That sort of thing is all over the web.  What is so wrong with having a
>> 'search box' that is always visible and always in the same place?  If
>> 'there is not enough room' then perhaps there's too much going on.
> 
> We've stopped making meaningful progress since we unleashed upon the 
> world a whole generation of programmers more focused on form than 
> function.  This almost smacks of an attempt to have fun animating the 
> GUI, nothing more ...

I think we stopped making progress when programming became a trade unto 
itself, instead of something that anybody who wanted to use a computer 
had to do to make it work.

Boredom has obviously set in deep inside the trade programmer's psyche. 
 This is why we have all the useless shit we have today.  If they 
didn't redo the UI every 2-3 years you'd finally figure out that there 
is no progress whatsoever in the general purpose consumer-oriented 
computer world.

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#8654

On Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 11:46:25 PM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
> I think we stopped making progress when programming became a trade unto 
> itself, instead of something that anybody who wanted to use a computer 
> had to do to make it work.
> 

IMHO sadly it's the other way around: the marketing convinced everyone that
they could be programmers too (it's your machine, and you can give it
instructions too!), and now the world is filled with thousands of crappy
applications made by Sundays' coders.

> Boredom has obviously set in deep inside the trade programmer's psyche. 
>  This is why we have all the useless shit we have today.  If they 
> didn't redo the UI every 2-3 years you'd finally figure out that there 
> is no progress whatsoever in the general purpose consumer-oriented 
> computer world.
>

There's progress but it's invisible. I can see a lot of skilled guys making
impressive codes just because I'm a professional: nothing gets to the
general public.. and I'd say obviously.
My wife is a biologist, who works in research projects for her university;
despite how good her results are, nobody will ever know unless she gets a
Nobel or whatever, but this doesn't mean she isn't doing a good work
that every other scientist in her field can take profit of, making more
research, and on and on.

Our work is finally so specialized that its results are obscure to anyone
who doesn't have at least an IT-related degree, and this is good. OTOH,
media push shiny crap made by children, and we get angry, or maybe perplexed.
We shouldn't. Think about a physicist who has to read everyday crap about
black holes in the newspaper.

We're professionals, we do our job, whatever.

M2C,
Ciao!

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#8655

On 2015-09-10 22:38:52 +0000, fmassei@gmail.com said:

> On Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 11:46:25 PM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
>> I think we stopped making progress when programming became a trade unto
>> itself, instead of something that anybody who wanted to use a computer
>> had to do to make it work.
>> 
> 
> IMHO sadly it's the other way around: the marketing convinced everyone that
> they could be programmers too (it's your machine, and you can give it
> instructions too!), and now the world is filled with thousands of crappy
> applications made by Sundays' coders.

Everybody can be a programmer.  They used to teach all the children who 
went through school in my state how to use BASIC at least, and once you 
knew this you could pretty much program any home computer from that 
era.  While this isn't "computer engineering" it's much better than we 
seem to be doing today.

I understand why programmers don't appreciate this though - it's like 
bragging to a lawn care service owner that you mow your own lawn.  
Maybe a little?

>> Boredom has obviously set in deep inside the trade programmer's psyche.
>> This is why we have all the useless shit we have today.  If they
>> didn't redo the UI every 2-3 years you'd finally figure out that there
>> is no progress whatsoever in the general purpose consumer-oriented
>> computer world.
>> 
> 
> There's progress but it's invisible. I can see a lot of skilled guys making
> impressive codes just because I'm a professional: nothing gets to the
> general public.. and I'd say obviously.
> My wife is a biologist, who works in research projects for her university;
> despite how good her results are, nobody will ever know unless she gets a
> Nobel or whatever, but this doesn't mean she isn't doing a good work
> that every other scientist in her field can take profit of, making more
> research, and on and on.
> 
> Our work is finally so specialized that its results are obscure to anyone
> who doesn't have at least an IT-related degree, and this is good. OTOH,
> media push shiny crap made by children, and we get angry, or maybe perplexed.
> We shouldn't. Think about a physicist who has to read everyday crap about
> black holes in the newspaper.
> 
> We're professionals, we do our job, whatever.
> 
> M2C,
> Ciao!

There is lots of hardware progress, but software doesn't seem to be any 
better these days than it was in 1995.  Capability-wise, if you remove 
"multimedia" from the equation, today's computers and software offer 
really no enormous benefit compared to one from 20 years ago.

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#8656

On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 1:13:38 AM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
> On 2015-09-10 22:38:52 +0000, fmassei@gmail.com said:
> > Our work is finally so specialized that its results are obscure to anyone
> > who doesn't have at least an IT-related degree, and this is good. OTOH,
> > media push shiny crap made by children, and we get angry, or maybe
> > perplexed. We shouldn't. Think about a physicist who has to read everyday
> > crap about black holes in the newspaper.
> > 
> > We're professionals, we do our job, whatever.
> 
> There is lots of hardware progress, but software doesn't seem to be any 
> better these days than it was in 1995.  Capability-wise, if you remove 
> "multimedia" from the equation, today's computers and software offer 
> really no enormous benefit compared to one from 20 years ago.
>

You can't be serious. Just look at.. dunno, everything! Even if you don't
take in count multimedia (why?) tons of stuff are better just because
software.. I'll leave data-compression also out, but.. when you speak to
your phone and it answers, those Markov chains weren't there in '95. When
your SSD doesn't break after one year, you've to thank you're not in '95.
Heck! Even, ehen your kernel actually does its work instead of giving blue
screens of segmentation faults you have to thank that you're not in the '90s!

Ciao!

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#8657

fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> Heck! Even, ehen your kernel actually does its work instead of giving blue
> screens of segmentation faults you have to thank that you're not in the '90s!

Of course, there were those of us who went through the '90s
with nary a blue screen in sight.

-- 
Bill Evans / Box 1224 / Mariposa, CA 95338 / (209)742-4720
Mail-To: wje@acm.org   -- PGP encrypted mail preferred. --
pgpkey.mariposabill.com for public key.    Key #: 8D8B521B
PGPprint: 0A9C 3545 8FFF 7501 6265 1519 40FF 76F9 8D8B 521B

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#8664

On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 6:20:17 AM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> > Heck! Even, ehen your kernel actually does its work instead of giving blue
> > screens of segmentation faults you have to thank that you're not in the
> > '90s!
> 
> Of course, there were those of us who went through the '90s
> with nary a blue screen in sight.
> 

It was only me who was keep seeing them on ATM machines, screens at the
airports and pretty much any screen that was not located in my office? :)

Ciao!

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#8674

On 2015-09-10 23:32:42 +0000, fmassei@gmail.com said:

> On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 1:13:38 AM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
>> On 2015-09-10 22:38:52 +0000, fmassei@gmail.com said:
>>> Our work is finally so specialized that its results are obscure to anyone
>>> who doesn't have at least an IT-related degree, and this is good. OTOH,
>>> media push shiny crap made by children, and we get angry, or maybe
>>> perplexed. We shouldn't. Think about a physicist who has to read everyday
>>> crap about black holes in the newspaper.
>>> 
>>> We're professionals, we do our job, whatever.
>> 
>> There is lots of hardware progress, but software doesn't seem to be any
>> better these days than it was in 1995.  Capability-wise, if you remove
>> "multimedia" from the equation, today's computers and software offer
>> really no enormous benefit compared to one from 20 years ago.
>> 
> 
> You can't be serious. Just look at.. dunno, everything! Even if you don't
> take in count multimedia (why?) tons of stuff are better just because
> software.. I'll leave data-compression also out, but.. when you speak to
> your phone and it answers, those Markov chains weren't there in '95. When
> your SSD doesn't break after one year, you've to thank you're not in '95.
> Heck! Even, ehen your kernel actually does its work instead of giving blue
> screens of segmentation faults you have to thank that you're not in the '90s!
> 
> Ciao!

These are all useful advances in their way, but they hardly help the 
average person use their computer to solve some problem in their life.  
The fundamental use-cases for a computer (not counting social media, 
youtube, and nextflix) have essentially remained unchanged since the 
1980s.

We have seen a lot of "progress" yet we don't really seem to be doing 
much more with our computers.

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#8695

On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 11:13:50 PM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
> On 2015-09-10 23:32:42 +0000, fmassei@gmail.com said:
> > You can't be serious. Just look at.. dunno, everything! Even if you don't
> > take in count multimedia (why?) tons of stuff are better just because
> > software.. I'll leave data-compression also out, but.. when you speak to
> > your phone and it answers, those Markov chains weren't there in '95. When
> > your SSD doesn't break after one year, you've to thank you're not in '95.
> > Heck! Even, ehen your kernel actually does its work instead of giving blue
> > screens of segmentation faults you have to thank that you're not in the
> > '90s!
> > 
> > Ciao!
> 
> These are all useful advances in their way, but they hardly help the 
> average person use their computer to solve some problem in their life.  
> The fundamental use-cases for a computer (not counting social media, 
> youtube, and nextflix) have essentially remained unchanged since the 
> 1980s.
> 
> We have seen a lot of "progress" yet we don't really seem to be doing 
> much more with our computers.
>

In the '80s or '90s, I'd open my terminal, vi and start writing. If it was
a new project usually I had to take libraries or pieces of other projects
to have lists, hash-maps or whatever. If I forgot something I searched in the
books on my shelf. For some calculations, I could have used a spreadsheet,
but sincerely doing stuff by pen and paper was still usually faster for the
small things, and sending a file to colleagues or bosses was, let's say,
tricky - I had to print it first.

Now I can open a full-blown IDE (I usually still write in vi on a terminal,
but that's just because I'm old) and use a language which has almost 
everything I need to start thinking directly of the main problem. If I don't
remember something I google it or I go on Wikipedia. For calculations I open
octave or maxima, I even almost forgot how to do an integral by hand. For
office documents, everything is "on the cloud".

None of these things are "hardware advancements", it's software. Their
ideas may be decades old, but still they weren't there. HW and SW surely
have a certain "balance", there's computational power and architectural
and algorithmic cleverness, but still, my daily life is better now.

Ciao!

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#8696

> On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 11:13:50 PM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:

>> These are all useful advances in their way, but they hardly help the 
>> average person use their computer to solve some problem in their life.  
>> The fundamental use-cases for a computer (not counting social media, 
>> youtube, and nextflix) have essentially remained unchanged since the 
>> 1980s.

Still justifying your killfile entry, I see.

-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 37th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3181
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#8697

Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> > On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 11:13:50 PM UTC+2, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
> 
> >> These are all useful advances in their way, but they hardly help the 
> >> average person use their computer to solve some problem in their life.  
> >> The fundamental use-cases for a computer (not counting social media, 
> >> youtube, and nextflix) have essentially remained unchanged since the 
> >> 1980s.
> 
> Still justifying your killfile entry, I see.

I'm not following your argument.

-- 
Bill Evans / Box 1224 / Mariposa, CA 95338 / (209)742-4720
Mail-To: wje@acm.org   -- PGP encrypted mail preferred. --
pgpkey.mariposabill.com for public key.    Key #: 8D8B521B
PGPprint: 0A9C 3545 8FFF 7501 6265 1519 40FF 76F9 8D8B 521B

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#8698

fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
>                   I even almost forgot how to do an integral by hand.

For many people, I fear that the "almost" is disappearing,
and not just for calculus.  This is scary.

-- 
Bill Evans / Box 1224 / Mariposa, CA 95338 / (209)742-4720
Mail-To: wje@acm.org   -- PGP encrypted mail preferred. --
pgpkey.mariposabill.com for public key.    Key #: 8D8B521B
PGPprint: 0A9C 3545 8FFF 7501 6265 1519 40FF 76F9 8D8B 521B

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#8699

On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 7:54:59 PM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> >                   I even almost forgot how to do an integral by hand.
> 
> For many people, I fear that the "almost" is disappearing,
> and not just for calculus.  This is scary.
> 

I don't find it scarier than not knowing how to do a square root or a
logarithm by hand. At any time, if I'm curious, I can look it up, but as
any other "manual" technique, if you don't do everyday, you forget it..

Ciao!

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#8700

fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 7:54:59 PM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> > fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> > >                   I even almost forgot how to do an integral by hand.
> > 
> > For many people, I fear that the "almost" is disappearing,
> > and not just for calculus.  This is scary.
> > 
> 
> I don't find it scarier than not knowing how to do a square root or a
> logarithm by hand. At any time, if I'm curious, I can look it up, but as
> any other "manual" technique, if you don't do everyday, you forget it..

Actually, I was thinking of everyday things like making
change at a cash register, eyeballing one's gasoline mileage
between fillups, making out an itemized receipt by hand, and
basic arithmetic in general.

-- 
Bill Evans / Box 1224 / Mariposa, CA 95338 / (209)742-4720
Mail-To: wje@acm.org   -- PGP encrypted mail preferred. --
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#8709

On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 9:01:11 PM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 7:54:59 PM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> > > For many people, I fear that the "almost" is disappearing,
> > > and not just for calculus.  This is scary.
> > > 
> > 
> > I don't find it scarier than not knowing how to do a square root or a
> > logarithm by hand. At any time, if I'm curious, I can look it up, but as
> > any other "manual" technique, if you don't do everyday, you forget it..
> 
> Actually, I was thinking of everyday things like making
> change at a cash register, eyeballing one's gasoline mileage
> between fillups, making out an itemized receipt by hand, and
> basic arithmetic in general.
> 

Well, I usually don't like to generalize, but people who have problems with
basic arithmetic, who decided that learning something of everyday use isn't
worth the effort, usually have, due to this attitude, bigger problems in
life than arithmetic itself.. And it's not a matter of the time we live in,
we always had a bunch of those.

Ciao!

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#8710

fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> Well, I usually don't like to generalize, but people who have problems with
> basic arithmetic, who decided that learning something of everyday use isn't
> worth the effort, usually have, due to this attitude, bigger problems in
> life than arithmetic itself.. And it's not a matter of the time we live in,
> we always had a bunch of those.

Actually, it's not particular people with problems with
arithmetic.  I've noticed over a few decades an increasing
trend to let devices do our basic arithmetic for us.  Pretty
much all of us, including me.

I'm not worried so much about those who are particuarly
arithmetically challenged.  I'm worred about the pervasive
trend.

But maybe it's just that I'm in the United States.  I wonder
whether other countries are in the same situation.

-- 
Bill Evans / Box 1224 / Mariposa, CA 95338 / (209)742-4720
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#8711

On Monday, September 14, 2015 at 8:41:52 PM UTC+2, Bill Evans wrote:
> fmassei@gmail.com wrote:
> > Well, I usually don't like to generalize, but people who have problems with
> > basic arithmetic, who decided that learning something of everyday use isn't
> > worth the effort, usually have, due to this attitude, bigger problems in
> > life than arithmetic itself.. And it's not a matter of the time we live in,
> > we always had a bunch of those.
> 
> Actually, it's not particular people with problems with
> arithmetic.  I've noticed over a few decades an increasing
> trend to let devices do our basic arithmetic for us.  Pretty
> much all of us, including me.
> 
> I'm not worried so much about those who are particuarly
> arithmetically challenged.  I'm worred about the pervasive
> trend.
> 

In the group of "arithmetically challenged" I would include people who
struggle for one minute calculating the 20% of a number, or cannot give an
immediate rough estimate in front of a series of three/four numbers.
If you think that this is the condition of most of the people, you agree
with me that most of these people also have problems in dealing with their
normal lives in every field: as I wrote, it's a matter of attitude toward
problems and their solutions.

> But maybe it's just that I'm in the United States.  I wonder
> whether other countries are in the same situation.
> 

I mostly lived in Europe and went in the USA just for short periods, but,
actually, I can say that people there have more problems with these kind
of things, which always made me wonder, given that every time you go out
to eat something you have to calculate the tip for the waiter/waitress, and
everybody is very serious about it! (e.g. in Spain you just don't tip, in
Germany you usually just round up to the 5 EURO more than 10%, in Italy you
divide the total between the number of people, make it even, and what's
extra is the tip). Not being able to almost automatically add VAT+tip in
front of a price in a menu tells a lot.

Ciao!

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