It should be illegal to connect a touch screen to a computer that runs like a potato. Even a 20 year old CPU should be fine if it has enough RAM to avoid reloading things from flash memory every time you press a button.
Comment on VW Is Putting Buttons Back in Cars Because People Complained Enough
0110010001100010@lemmy.world 11 months agoI pumped gas at a brand new Shell station over the weekend. The controls for the pump was one GIANT touchscreen (I’m talking probably 12 inches wide by 36 inches tall). It was fucking PAINFUL to use. Every touch took 2-3 seconds for the action to happen. Da fuck is wrong with a regular pump and regular buttons that just work?
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 months ago
capital@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If it keeps getting broken they might reconsider.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It seems to be a very popular mindset in software development that efficiency isn’t as important because of how fast hardware has gotten.
This sucks because I don’t get better hardware just to make up for worse software (not that it even does; a lot of browser-based apps are painfully slow), and some of these devs end up working on weaker platforms that don’t make up for their shitty programming. They might not ever touch the platform it is actually supposed to run on and instead work on a dev machine that is powerful enough to make it look good. It’s possible that neither them nor anyone hiring/managing them realizes that they aren’t the kind of programmer they want.
Though it’s also possible that the programmers are fine and have told their managers that the CPUs just aren’t powerful enough for what they want them to do but some assholes are only looking at the bottom line and have low standards for these kind of things in their own life (my TV is slow, so it’s no big deal that our car interface is slow).
Worst thing is it’s probably less than a $50 difference in cost to switch to something that could handle it fine, assuming it’s not programmed in JavaScript and HTML or slow because it’s backend is on the cloud or some shit like that, which also wouldn’t surprise me.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 months ago
It seems to be a very popular mindset in software development that efficiency isn’t as important because of how fast hardware has gotten.
How’s this for irony: I was hired at my current job as part of a team whose whole mission is to address performance problems in a large desktop app…that’s written entirely in Typescript!
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s kinda funny how some are willing to develop a skill to great depth (you’d have to know JavaScript/TypeScript very well to write a full deal desktop application in it, and it probably involved a LOT of frustrating debug if performance is the main issue with it) but don’t spend any time on breadth to understand that some depths aren’t worth it.
psud@lemmy.world 10 months ago
We used to have a rule in computer system design that if an event would take more than 4 seconds we had to show a “waiting” icon like the hourglass.
Now though, people are sensitive to half a second between tap/click and something happening. Incidentally there’s no reason for a fuel pump control to be slow, even running on a potato. The engineer who designed it wasn’t given time to make it efficient
FaceDeer@kbin.social 11 months ago
In Canada it really sucks having to take your gloves off half the year. I hope this gets taken into account when touchscreens on gas pumps are considered.
aniki@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Try wearing very thin neoprene under your bigger gloves. It’s been a game changer for me. I have a horrible habit of taking my gloves off from years of snowboarding and those have been a game changer.
topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Your experience remembers me those old touch screen we had at the library in the 90s. The screen was monochrome, but touch sensitive. It took several seconds for react.
ZiemekZ@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What do you need a touchscreen for? You just take an appropriate pump (E95, Diesel), fill the fuel and pay at the register.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Because it’s way faster to pay at the pump and not have to go inside. I’ve only been inside a gas station like 4-5 times in the last decade.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 11 months ago
Also it probably was crustier than a toddler’s iPad. 🤢
CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
It was slow because all of the memory was allocated for the ads they show you.
567PrimeMover@kbin.social 11 months ago
Because then they don't have a display the size of a living room TV to shove ads in your face
the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
And to sell to the station owner when their proprietary hardware breaks. Oh what am i saying, they’re all service contacts these days. So more expensive service conrtacts and the ability to shut them the duck down for non-payment
ripcord@kbin.social 11 months ago
Were the old ones not the same...?
the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Were the old ones not the same…?
The contracts? Pumps? Im kinda talking it out my ass here but currently there’s no ability to shut down the pumps themselves as far as i understand it (in l understanding coming from being a cashier at one once. The touchscreens outside just process the customers payments. Without those they can still be run from the other system inside.
My hypothetical assumes more and more control left to the touchscreen. If it doesn’t make much sense then just reread my first sentence ;)
Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social 11 months ago
Reminder to try and press any of the buttons on the side of the screen to mute if possible. 2nd right or bottom right works on all the pumps around me but I dread the day we get touch only