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On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 11:57:32AM +0000, Geoff Wing wrote:
> a, a+b, a+2b, a+3b, a+4b, a+5b, a+6b, a+7b, ...., a+139627b, ....
>=20
> Pretty maybe but useful?  Percentage may be useful (because after 23 seco=
nds
> I want to know if I need to wait another 8 seconds - coffee is boiling).

Yes, I use the numbers to infer a percentage, effectively, and showing
a percentage (or even a progress(1)-style bar and ETA) instead of the
raw numbers would be a better change than the dots.

newfs on large and/or slow media can still take some time, such that
knowing how much more time it will take is useful.

> Once it prints out the first two values (and the last value (which you
> could calculate)), what exactly is it useful for?  It's just good to "wat=
ch"?
> I don't really understand the objection.

I object because the dots show movement, but lose information on how
many more dots are needed till it finishes, especially when I have a
screenful of dots.

I think that even changing it to a progress bar / %age would be a
gratuitous change; there was nothing really wrong with how it's been
for many many years, and I don't really understand what the change
makes better. Changing it to dots is an objectionable gratuitous
change, for the reasons above.

If we think its important to change for some reason I've missed, at
least lets make the change an improvement that presents the
information to hand in a more concise or informative fashion. The idea
of a switch to get back the old behaviour seems like a good idea, too,
but somehow that complexity mostly seems to also argue for the change
being unnecessary.

--
Dan.

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