| Registered: March 14, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 4,764 |
| | Posted: | | | | I have noted that when I backup my collection (which we all do regularly, right?) the overall progress shows 88% when the profiles have been backed up and the backup of cover scans starts. I always wondered what algorithm Ken used that comes to that conclusion.  That's not really important, but it does remind me of an old developer saying: "When you're 90% done, half the work remains." What that means is that you always underestimate the time it takes to test, correct, test again, etc. And, if you're anything like me, there will usually be very late realizations during testing, such as "Oh, it would be better if it was done like this", "Ah, we need to be able to configure that", "Hm, that user interface looks a bit awkward. I should fix that", "Wait, I should add such-and-such feature!" And then you need to document the stuff (fun, fun, fun  ). So when you have coded 90%, you think you're almost done, but you really aren't. PS. "An old developer saying" means that the saying is old, not the developer. Or does it ...?  | | | My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar |
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| Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: |  Posts: 6,489 |
| | Posted: | | | | Having developed a bunch of plugins that crawl through masses of data with unknown content, yet still trying to give the user an idea of expected completion, I have sympathy for what Ken must have faced. - Do you simply report on the number of completed items? - Do you take past progress into account when estimating time to complete? - Do you report on the basis of bytes processed? I usually try to do all of the above, and usually arrange for the task bar to move to a specific point at the completion of each task. For example, for 4 tasks, at 25, 50, 75, 100. It seems from your observation that Ken has done something similar, so that when he starts that last task, he has completed 88% of the tasks, but having an indeterminate amount of processing required to complete the final 12%. I have one plugin that keeps track of bytes processed and adjusts the progress based on a prediction of the processing needed for remaining tasks. That has the odd result of the progress bar sometimes going backwards!  (Actually I'm not sure about that - I think what happens is that each task segment's progress moves at a different speed) | | | Thanks for your support.
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