Decades of Adaptation in Computer Software — Now by 2022, Allows a Standards Reformation
Decades of Adaptation in Computer Software — Now by 2022, Allows a Standards Reformation
Hardware Maturity; Software Companies; Hidden User Burdens; and a Possibly Coming “Reformation of Technology Standards”
Second Edition. This essay is entirely a matter of the author’s opinion. Copyright © 2022 Talon 38 Personal Media, SmLlc.
In the recent several decades, before now in early September of the year 2022, the great bulk of research and development in desktop, laptop, and tablet software has been actively and successfully improving human quality of life and quality of living while at task, of commercial business in goods and services, management of personal chores, pursuit of personal projects, dedicated recreation, and a glad new hybrid I term the “recreative sprint at user’s pursuits,” vocational or personal, short or long in duration.
A recreative sprint at user’s pursuits exists now since about the year 2018, depending on personal upgrade timing to then latest processors, DDR4 RAM, and m.2 persistent storage devices, and the later model motherboards, which after transition reduces gap-length in timing pauses the computer imposes upon the user to such short durations, so as to not pause or interrupt creative idea retention, and allow for very fluid overall cognitive human brain flow at computer and computerized device tasks and subtasks.
This also provides uniquely scattered opportunity for intermittently spontaneously self-remotivating, personal idea detail retention boosting up or boost back up, and/or self-learning receptiveness boosts up or boost back up. This is available while otherwise smoothly and unhurriedly attending to creative or productive task flows, and available when variety is at option, as to which applied effort, via which application variety of options can reasonably avail the user.
A recreative sprint at user’s pursuits features its opportunity for spontaneity from both haphazard occurrences and thoughts best not preplanned in too much detail, mixed in with better opportunity, but also thus no guarantee, for personal insights to come to mind, of ingenuity and enjoyable retention of idea, alongside potential partial application of idea while at session. Retention of ambient idea is of greatest long-lasting character developmental value to a person, even if not much else is tangibly complete and printed or produced to the degree that other persons could observe something understandably pleasing to the user. Only the avid computer workstation operator knows what was rewarding.
Proceeding away from software improvements and refinements, to digress to address first hardware improvement related issues, the advent of this sort of recreative sprint at missions was for me at approximately four years before now, or since approximately 2018. By sometime in this window, with exact timing unique to each desktop, laptop, or tablet buyer or builder, mainstream users could possess and enjoyably and productively leverage 8 to 16 core processors greatly smaller in more compact chip detail, densities and intricacy resolution than previously, DDR4 memory standard, display screens of greater viewability factors considered and implemented, similar improvements in motherboard designs, cooling technology improvements, and graphics card improvements — although the very high end of those cards is to credit to the issues I discuss in this essay, thanks to having been inspired and funded by computer gamers, by having improved the entire spectrum of available graphics cards, such that much better content creator level graphics capabilities existed by 2018 from the medium to low end models of graphics card. This experience bloomed for me after I brought into my life a 8 core processor by homebuilding it in 2018.
Continuing, concerning hardware device componentry improvements, but while switching away from the overall 2018 timing when hardware crossover enabled this mission sprinting, is a one word way to indicate the root improved factor with which it benefits all of us computer users. That key feature of this lasting and enduring result from hardware device componentry improvements is often mentioned with inaccurate terminology. This global boon in hardware device componentry advances is best described as great improvement in computer and user nimbleness. Nimbleness, is the word and term I prefer. That’s a term that seems to describe and clinch true to form much better. That’s much better than ostensible power, which is actually a scientific aspect of all activity in light radiation, mechanical motion, electric phenomenon, and more categories, such as power supply maximum wattage. That’s also much better than ostensible speed, as we all could relate to not enjoying being hurried, and also to not always enjoying shortening the time spent at the computer, very often.
Nimbleness (computer and computerized device hardware aspect or feature elucidative discussion): the degree to which the rapidity of very short timespan computerized in-between type operations results in the reduction or elimination of user pursuit fluidity gaps.
Reduction or elimination of count or number of such gaps occurring to the computer user is somewhat more important than reductions in the length in timespan of these gaps, but with the length of short time also important, to those specific computer tasks when hardware technology improved them in this recent decade to the point that their timespan short gaps, formerly in time forcing user brief pause and wait, were being reduced to the level of between 3 and 140 milliseconds (in notion, rather than by measurement), at same such periods of time, for actions such as application launch and file access.
These became so very short as to no longer count as hindering or turbulent gaps any longer, and so degree of nimbleness — when above average to outstanding— is what contributes to smoother creative, productive, or recreative user cognitive flow, and likewise — poor nimbleness — results in a more hindered, halting, and turbulent user cognitive flow, when and while in such subtly hindering processes each human user cannot succeed more fully, or sometimes worse — not effectively enough, at retaining self-motivation, self-idea retention, and self-learning receptivity, as compared to if having more nimble device hardware for personal usage or commercial trade usage.
The many small timespans of poor nimbleness in many computer pursuits and tasks, formerly, when before the twenty-first century teens decade preceding this early stage decade of the twenties, were actually the true complaint, as in reality when flowing at task or subtask we mostly are flexible with overall shortness or more gradual and unhurried timespan of accomplishment, as a matter of much longer timespan windows than mere seconds or less, and we mostly instead prefer smooth cognitive flow of software concourse design, instead of long term speedy completion of time at the computer. Software applications are mostly made less nimble by the hardware’s poor nimbleness when relating to operating system, in the somewhat personal tethering to the computer while engaged activity and captivatedly in the software’s “concourse effect” (as in a international airport concourse). Smoother living in that concourse effect, with better effectiveness and with less need to halt briefly and often, benefit from being cognitively smooth also. Those factors rising to smooth and fluid status is a facet that great nimbleness provides most noticeably: when operating system functions between and within software application of the heaviest processor, storage, memory, and thus time consumption, reduce in degree such that computer usage becomes smooth for the user in tasks and applied processes.
Accumulative amassing effects of encountering too many not as nimble creative flow hindrances and ambient personal memory drains (subtle to conscious awareness, until later consideration) of short .25 second to 4 second gaps filled too much of our computing time one decade ago still, to not feel somewhat disappointed at some of our computing experiences, and that being a strange disappointment cognitively, as it was a mildly but infused harried feeling often very independent of the obviously well made quality of output, result, or productivity, as similar on other occasions when that factor had not manifested. Yet still in some cases the strange disappointment occurred, whether the user session achieved good work or play, or did not.
Returning to software improvements and refinements up until now in late summer of 2022, those of us fortunate enough to operate highly nimble computers have been naturally blessed also by the great refinement that efforts performed over recent years in the software design and standards design aspects of computing have provided us all. Cognitively highly nimble computer operation full-option maximum self-volition activity seems very good for we human animals, and much of it is improving by way of avid and smart-minded software refinements and processes improvements. Yet something strange might be apparent to many persons in 2022. As of now it is impossible to very haphazardly fortunately happen upon an opportunity to arrive at the possible reasons, which later paragraphs of text in this essay attempt to bound and canvas, as to the way things could be different, if we weren’t naturally and understandably rooted in the sliding-time now which is always the “real-time,” and thus we are unable to wonder as to what could be totally different, without launching the imagination too untethered, and looking for invalidities to conjectures. This unfamiliarity is due to technology “do overs” and “reformations” not having much ever been known to happen for over one hundred years of history, except in the automobile design during the twentieth-centuries eighties decades, and also in aircraft design, in repeated stairstep stages of several generations, between 1945 and 2005, plus other technology areas, if considered in complete breadth, beyond my research.
This sweep of computer, computerized, and internet software and hardware improvements includes device executable feature and usage pattern paradigms of both client-only and client-server models of usage, differing in the device standalone nature of the software application being applied by users qualifying as client-only, in contrast to heavy internet browser page serving of data and reception of users input qualifying in the difference, as being the model nature of client-server.
This increase in both productivity and enjoyment while being productive or recreating includes refinements in operating systems, in software development processes, in the huge catch-all category of consumer applications, and in driver software executables alike. This worthy commitment of so much improvement of what was earlier conceived, ideated, developed, and maintained also includes formerly adopted file format standards, internet transport format standards, and coding cycle standards, which are developed and maintained by operating systems companies.
These operating systems companies, which do excellent at supporting designers and developers of software applications, such as me, do deserve better than to be assessed in motives, based on outsiders observations of monetary parameter behavior, without some wonder at the relationships these operating systems companies have, in true intricate detail, with the hardware device vendor companies which have contracts with them.
The true inner workings and negative consequences for both device hardware and operating systems types of companies might be profoundly complex, with each having such responsibility to their companies people and a great many among all the people of this global world, ethically on their shoulders. Importantly, we sometimes fail to consider that there can be a host of negative consequences to both concurring or not concurring, weighty either way, when wondering about how these issues develop to completions of agreement. Monetary compensation amounts that are published and are reviewable, if assessed as the only measure of merit of motive, or possible excess to the point of being unfair, fail to grasp the human element in contractual decisions of there being far more motives, such as support of peer personnel in same company, fair play to personnel within the vendor relationship contracted company, and fair play to clients all over the world as to consequences — not of operating systems bugs — but detailed features of features, which if not studied with care and advocated with explanatory savvy to result in alternative choices suited better, can introduce subtle and insidious effects on device user’s qualities of life.
Seasoned amateur and commercial trade developers like myself do begin to notice, in time, this differing human internal brain factors category of human motives and reactions to computer executables flow, sequencing, freedom from too few at ready options, freedom from unexpected new workflows surprisingly and joltingly occurring, after having changed software options, and most noticeably over most standard operating time: brain visual-scan and options-scan, and button-click/tap fluidity, plus also unhurriedness.
Frustrating setbacks in software standards global developments have occurred, but we users might not be able to understand how so, even if many of us were told some relevant and detailed stories. As a matter of natural distributions, bad setbacks in our global societies computerized device usage lifestyles presently, very likely have been caused by bad decisions, which starting during the computer technology blooming in the early 1990s, would after having progressed in place as new standard another 0–8 months after technology or contractual decision, feasibly could not have been undone. That would notionally be because much of everything else linked to computers and computerized devices was blooming in concert and concurrently adapting to whatever sequence of innovations happened to have their advent, and de facto standardization, for the then time, in order of time.
So I conclude that bad for all of us happenings in software and hardware global development have occurred and do occur, with the various unavoidable ones not truly sad when they are tradeoffs, which are the way they are for various scientifically necessary reasons; and with the various human interest guided optional and avoidable remainder of outcomes — including a glad minority within that remainder not being bad but being wonderful instead, — but with the truly bad for all parties cases still prevalent enough to be the sadder type of loss, coming out of informal and formal negotiation: thus being detrimental-compromises and poor ideas.
Tradeoffs should not be misconstrued with compromises (beneficial or detrimental, as full spectrum) or poor ideas in my opinion, though our vocabularies have no experience with the difference much, unless having an engineering design background of long experience to provide enough years for matters to touch upon personal thinking language term options. Tradeoffs is the term for when truly some actions with certain criteria and conditions cannot be done to physical feasibility without intentionally lessening in the design one beneficial resultant feature’s prevalence, to allow by scientific relationship more increase in another one to several beneficial resultant feature’s degree(s), or prevalence(s).
I concluded before, maybe surprisingly to the reader, or difficult to relate to for the reader, that bad — for all of us — happenings in software and hardware global development have, by obvious odds against perfect progress, occurred. The reason is that as of now, what could have turned out better, in minor degree mostly — though of cascading effects — , and in major degree less often, tends to not be noticeable as being in any way different than “the best the technology can do for us,” merely by not having another sequence of the past, or a past with different and more robust metadata designed and agreeable upon, concerning decisions as to data file format metadata, field, or tag count capabilities, more thoughtful than performing the minimum obvious data tagging functions. This applies to lack of email format robustness, due to no long-reviewed and revised standards as to enumerations of fixed category names and preselected tag set all named, each optional to utilize and with default null values possible, when in the past the complexity and subjectivity of such a selection process was maybe typically considered too biased and unpopular with users, when in actuality it required more lengthy time frame, and a great deal of searching for and contacting, plus coordinating, with many types of representatives having long expertise with different aspects of these issues; plus a great deal of patience and exposure to wrangling.
As an example, had file formats for digital music been better able to coordinate and meet the approval of more types of representatives of differing expertise in software, data structure, compression, music publishing, music composition, music presentation, and music cataloging and archiving, then possibly it could have been feasible to add metadata tags allowing publishers and artists to include up to five square images per music track, one for front cover of album, one for any specific artwork composed for the track or song itself if desired, and three more images maximum, to allow for the equivalent of a total of all four faces, front and back of both left and right sides of spine, of the standard former vinyl record album square packaging, of large size. Usage of any but one image would be typical if others were unused, of all 5 optional. Also, a data file format field might have been assigned optional inclusion of lyrics, and have been assigned a text string maximum length capable of holding a very word-dense set of lyrics for well over ten minutes per notional song and track. A similar metadata field could have been set aside for optional inclusion of musician biographical data customized for an album or single, and another could have been set aside for optional inclusion of musician or publisher commentary of theme or story related to the album to which the track or song belongs. Finally a last similar metadata field could have been set aside for specific track and song commentary. Of important note, other metadata robustness features could likely be added, in excess of what I could ideate myself, by way of standards committees having better opportunity to cross-coordinate and proceed through stages of review and ideation.
Gladly, in actuality, the discussion above is not a sad recount or review, one reason being that when the .mp3 standard and .wma standard were developed, file size was kept tight, due to video files playing on computers being very rare and taking up very large amounts of persistent storage space, and music files being not as compromising as video files to persistent storage space, but due to number of songs/tracks becoming very popular for users to place in personal computer persistent storage, still an overbearing amount of megabytes and gigabytes in total. But another reason this is not a sad recount or review, is that possibly something like my above exercise about music data files could be nearly bound to happen in the decades ahead.
It is a matter of trends in computing, in both hardware and software, that has caused me to notice an upcoming stagnation of current refinements of the same time-sequence of over two decades long, of slapping one standard upon the other in time order, and rigging up adaptations in same order, that being in time order of commercial advent of a new successful technology standard, with degree of success often more to do with happening to arrive on the market before other ideas happened to occur — for many direct and happenstance reasons — , than would likely be the case of success having had more gradual timeframe to allow standards to compete for better duration of time to notice issues arise, and to even learn what the new hardware changes and software and internet standards truly meant to what could sensibly done without unforeseeable pitfalls in user enjoyability of productivity, and in recreational aspects, to the new formats, means, mechanisms, and personal global personal and inter-social lifestyle changes. This is more the case with software standards than with hardware standards, as hardware standards did have the better open standards review times for performance, and so the issue of many successes having merely been a matter of timing rather than functional human factors merit, is truly mostly for the software standards, data file format standards, internet transport standards, and not nearly as often the case when considering hardware standard refinements under user and buyer competition.
It does seem evident by now that a “standard linear-technology sequenced-progression set of over two to three decades has by now reached stagnation, in the realms of software, software file format standards, email format frailty in minimal fields with which to query, etc.”; while hardware standards have not suffered this stagnation and somewhat of a dead end, with few ugly exceptions.
The software standards partial dead end is mostly manifesting in file format schema limitations and in lack of full coverage of applicable and convenient data descriptive completeness and integrity, plus in inconsistencies far short of software programming language common interlink ability between differing languages (while the variety and freedom of differing languages does otherwise good maximization of failsafe alternatives and explorative potentials).
In contrast, hardware stagnation seems only at a dead end with flash USB persistent storage removeable media (plus in a few more areas less obvious to me), them being too small to personally label or commercially trade with well packaged collectable and arrangeable professional labelling, nor ability to stack or array into sets or libraries of such flash USB media sticks, plus with the removable storage media being so very small and unwieldy as to foster loss of track of identifiably to each flash USB media stick between several, and an overwhelming tendency to become indiscernible to the human brain visual scan, if in cabinetry or drawers or scattered on furniture, as is likely often.
A replacement storage card design and standard is greatly preferred for users to regain some better and reasonable human factors based capabilities in daily living flow with removable assets, and maybe by way of choosing a 3.5 inch to 4.5 inch square storage card design, of somewhat more than twice the thickness and greater rigidity than legacy floppy 3.5 inch disks, and possessing sleeving at the back right corner (lined up with likely human hand grasp primary push forces, being slightly off center to the right of half-way lateral centerline, while longitudinally inserting); and with that sleeve featuring a male-end USB connector interior to the corner surfaces, or a new thinner and wider version of the USB port former and current design, slightly thinner in width, and about half-again as wide as is now, to be handled with deft human factors and to be slid into, and ejected out of, a “storage card reader.” The larger volumetric capacity of the storage card would also facilitate a much larger range of possible persistent storage capacities, than do the flash USB persistent storage removeable media currently in usage.”
Thus, it maybe should soon become apparent to software companies of all sorts that opportunity, duty to users and selves, and distaste for some of the patchwork of current standards becoming unwieldy and proving their early prototype status in actuality, does exist and is not going away without many makeovers. This acclimating to a new situational interpretive template and sense of fresh new opportunities, might in time likely lead to relooks, redesigns, overhauls, and outright starting a reform of computer, computerized, internet data, hardware, and software standards and ways total makeovers.
For example, it could feasibly by now be argued that it is worth the time-consuming and intellectually stretching chore of deciding over more savvy entrances into the data file formats to all data files of any type or extension, of potential rudiments (in notion) such as category wordings and total set plus selected choice; perpendicular to category axis — class wordings and total set plus selected choice, scope wordings of personal/commercial pursuit type, such as commemorative, archival, final master, working papers, draft, proposal, official policy, and more, and total set plus selected choice; user or operator capacity wordings of personal, company, professional, volunteer, advocacy, civics, and hybrid (as initial very unrefined mere notion listing) and total set plus selected choice; tag wordings and extensive and total set plus selected choice; pertinence scales of wording and number both; importance levels of good granularity but not unwieldy, more balanced at 5 levels, and total set plus selected choice; maturity of composition (that is embedded in the data file composition) scales of wording and number and total set plus selected choice; version stamping left to the user to optionally manage of four numbers separated by periods; maybe ten to twenty related files available fields for optionally relating to other files existent (without having to populate those other files with inverse relational data, and thus being more flexible and casual, but with that designed by standard to be readily possible by software routines); and of course several more ideas of which I did not consider, as worthwhile honing in on as to our twenty-first century technology lifestyles. Of importance each field such as these should be fully optional to the user and operator to leverage, and should I believe begin with a value of default or null.
There is something to these stagnating trends of dwindling main-sequence innovation and unavailability of fresh new ideas in software and data file format standards, which is difficult to relate to many persons. It is not the “better, faster, smaller, cheaper, and newer” push or momentum that might first come to mind. Truly, it is not that, to my sensibilities and opinion. That sort of predilection would become evident to nearly anyone temporarily caught up in it. Company income increase motive is not the key feature, either. That’s not aware of just how human each of is, regardless of the very unusually rare feasible exceptional cases of those ill bent toward some others among us all. Truly, all this computer and internet software technology, which has developed over the recent 30 years or so, is first stage development globally, and that reality might be beginning to likely become apparent and attracting to computer software idea development persons, as showing the current technology standards, ways, and systems to be not as nifty as we were feeling they were ten to twenty years ago, but instead of becoming as of now to be familiar and well suited ways, actually becoming as of now standards and ways causing a few years of slight minor, but long-lasting, disappointment and rut. This I believe might be replaced by a sense of opportunity for commercially and personally enjoyable overhaul, once again in an open standards free market manner.
The vision type nature of this would be to produce greater breadth, flexibility, and thoughtfulness of information carried by data working files, and by transport mechanism data format structures; and also better interoperability between compiled executables, or even language syntax source files, of widely differing software languages, APIs, frameworks, and developer tools, to be better ready from experience of the recent 45 years, to empower and facilitate all persons better in the many decades future, further on.
It is potentially coming soon time for there to become a new “open reform of existing software and data standards, with no preexisting standard not revisited for assessment, as to adjustments and improvements.”
Authored by: Patrick L. Cheatham, Master of Science in aeronautical engineering
Decades of Adaptation in Computer Software — Now by 2022, Allows a Standards Reformation was originally published in Humen Facets Techniques (Mastery Meny Sciences) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.