Re: Warning about a slow response

[Sue Heim <SUE -at- RIS -dot- RISINC -dot- COM>]

I originally wrote Arthur and told him that I have a similar problem
when the user installs the program. So, at that point, I say "Wait
a moment while the Installation program is loaded. As soon as..."

Then I read Sue G's message:

> Is the length of time the process takes related to anything
> that the user can control???

> Here in the version control world, the length of time for
> checking in a file is highly dependent on the size of the
> file, the number of changes, and whether the file is ASCII
> or binary. Still other processes depend on the size of
> a directory and/or the number of subdirectories.

...and remembered another instance where there is a long time-delay.
When a user reconstructs a database, depending upon the size of the
db it can take, like, forever!!! The writer here before me (2 years
ago) made some cute crack about going to lunch. I thought it was
really tacky, since my primary target audience are presumably
intelligent human beings (research scientists, academics). So I've
changed it to "Plan to run the reconstruct utility when your computer
will not be in use for a long period of time. The time reuired to
reconstruct is proportional to the size of your database -- a large
database can take a long time."

Obviously, Arthur's "a minute or two" problem is more suited to my
first response than my last, but I thought I'd share in case anyone
else was interested.

Toodles!
...sue
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Sue Heim
Research Information Systems
Email: Sue -at- ris -dot- risinc -dot- com