Why is it that whenever you have a progress bar pop up on your computer, the thing never runs at a steady speed? Why all the little stops and starts?
This is the question YouTuber Tom Scott dives into for his latest video, which breaks down the many complexities of creating a progress bar that actually runs smoothly.
“An installer might have to download files from the internet, then decompress those files, then save those files along with reading or deleting stuff that’s already there, and maybe make some changes to the system settings as well,” explains Scott. “Now in theory, a programmer could work out roughly how long each of those processes will take and then bias the progress bar accordingly, but each one of those steps will take different amounts of time on different machines.” Read more…
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