[vhfpmr (OP)]

Once upon a time, in the long forgotten past, someone decided it would be a good idea if computers displayed a prompt to indicate whether the user's waiting for the computer or the machine's waiting for him, but nowadays, prompts seem to have become little more than a useless vehicle for displaying crass animated gimmicks.

Apart from the fact that they frequently appear and disappear at random whilst the computer's still working, the particular nuisance is the way that they aren't prompt. Press or click to initiate a command, and there's now a random delay of as much as several seconds before the prompt updates (if at all), during which time there's no feedback as to whether the computer's got the message or not: "did I press that key hard enough?".

This invariably results in pressing the key several times more, only to find that when the computer suddenly springs into life you're lumbered with the job of trying to undo multiple actions that you didn't want. Note that I'm not expecting computers to execute commands in no time at all, what I'm talking about is the time it takes to provide a visible acknowledgment that it's got the message. Computers seemed to manage this instantly when processors ran at a few MHz, but now they can't do it when they run a thousand times faster.

It isn't just computers either, it's equally applicable to just about every bit of electronic tech, and it becomes even worse still when you combine it with what must be the most unreliable component in the entire electronics industry: rubber keypads, which often only make contact about a third of the times you press them. Touch screens, with no assistance from tactile feedback, are another related bane.

It just seems to me like sloppy programming facilitated by the low expectations of the users.

[alancalverd]

Touch screens are a lot worse than rubber keypads!

Fortunately this machine doesn't do animated gimmicks but anything involving a third party on line can lead to endless loops if there's no clear acknowledgment of "sent", "working", or "reply".   

I blame overcomplicated, oversold and untested fourth-party software. Horizon, anyone?

[evan_au]

Re "Touch screens, with no assistance from tactile feedback": Some touch screens give audio and visual feedback, such as a click, and the key changes colour when you touch it.
It's not so bad when you are typing text, and can check what you wrote. It's more of a problem with password entry fields, which sometimes don't give you the option to reveal what you typed.

[vhfpmr (OP)]

Re "Touch screens, with no assistance from tactile feedback": Some touch screens give audio and visual feedback, such as a click, and the key changes colour when you touch it.

That doesn't address the problem with software delays though, from brain to muscle to touch sense to brain is a feedback loop, and feedback loops can go unstable if you put delays in them. The other reason I hate touch screens so much is the need to feel a button before I press it, as well as feel it move when I do press it. (This is one reason why touch screens are so effin' dangerous in cars: you can't operate controls by feel alone, without taking your eyes off the road, quite apart from the additional distraction of having to search a menu tree.)

Another problem unique to touchscreens is that you can end up selecting the wrong function if the screen happens to change at the last millisecond before your fingertip makes contact. All it would take to fix that is to inhibit the keyboard for 3-400ms following any screen changes.

But going back to computer prompts, what went wrong? Why is it that programmers can't create prompts that are prompt instead of tardy any more? Or perhaps they should just rename them tardies instead.

[nicephotog]

Reasonably simple rule of thumb problem for "modern password fields" using either a 32 or 64 bit computer.
The "encryption program" associated with most password fields whether SSL or https if web or simply the software login.
With either process method a verifying coded certificate is required to be the base consistent (constant) template for the crypt calculation all of which must be immediately commited in RAM, not buffered to lower security risk.
This takes much more RAM than anyone would think, mostly to re-check the activity has not had attempts to be interfered with.

Oddly, anti-virus running in the background can contribute hugely to slowing password processing e.g. login, as the re verification of process validity occurs.

Browsers also suffer these problems adding a third security verification layer with their ssl or https program invoked.

A final problem, is multi core 64 bit machines and the assignment of cores and threads (in MS windows known as "affinity") to each program main executable to use.
8 to 12 core 64 bit machines with 8 GB RAM are the base business or PC size compared to either OS requirements and many software to data size requirements, but unfortunately need both the RAM and cores assignments (remember PIF in early windows) to programs pre set to get good performance or the machine in its lifespan as many will at this very moment burn out trying to run everything started on one core while there are e.g. 10 or so other cores or "virtual cores" freely available.

[evan_au]

Press or click to initiate a command, and there's now a random delay of as much as several seconds before the prompt updates (if at all), during which time there's no feedback as to whether the computer's got the message or not

An increasing number of programs are "cloud based", which means they no longer run on your computer (which is eagerly awaiting your precious input), but run on some multi-processor owned by someone else, which is loaded down with requests from thousands of other users - and only accessed over a (sometimes overloaded) internet connection.

no clear acknowledgment of "sent", "working", or "reply"

The "working" indication can sometimes be provided by the rotating circle in the browser, which indicates that it is sending information to the cloud, or receiving information from the cloud,