News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
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Mail Starting 8/9/98 | |
Dave, my company is treating an aspect of Y2K compliance in a fairly humorous way. Our IT organization has decided that all references to two-digit years on our website must be fixed or removed, including dates in GIF/JPG images and PDF files!
From: random@youveHeardOfThem.com (Name Withheld);
Sent at 10 Aug 1998 10:03:30 -0700;
Y2KAlthough I think I understand the rationale (obviates the need for our programmers to think), I still believe this is a comical, Dilbertesque situation.
just read the NY Times article on download times you linked to from Scripting News today. While I get as annoyed as anyone at overly-long downloads caused by bad design, etc., the article does miss one important point in its consideration of the time "wasted" this way.
From: dan@mitchell.fhda.edu (Dan Mitchell);
Sent at Sat, 08 Aug 1998 09:17:12 -0700;
NY Times article on download timesAs I recall, the article states that the average user spends about 10 minutes per day waiting for pages to download. However, one must ask how much time would be "wasted" trying to get the same information from some other source. For example, just to get the interesting articles from one newspaper, one must scan all of the pages of the paper... not to mention go somewhere to _buy_ the paper (or at least walk to the front door to pick it up from the porch).
However, if you are like me (and I suspect you are) you probably read articles from many sources every day. Doing _this_ without the web (slow downloads and all) would take so much time that you couldn't even do it!
I can't think of _any_ source of information that is 100% efficient according to the Times definition.
Of course, if you are a really efficient web-based reader you can always open a few windows and load in one while you read in another...
