lagless typing : Java Glossary

For a program to be usable, it should echo keystrokes at the rate of the fastest typist, i.e. 200WPM (Words Per Minute) 16 CPS (Characters Per Second). Often apps I use take 10+ seconds to echo each character. Strangely, even though CPU (Central Processing Unit) are 5000 times fast than in DOS (Disk Operating System) days, often apps have more lag than they did in DOS days. What causes this anomaly?

• Operating systems that are not smart enough to give tasks echoing keystrokes top priority.
• Computers are cluttered with dozens of background tasks doing nothing but clogging the works.
• Apps trying to do too much before echoing the character.
• Apps that do disk i/o between keystrokes and OSes (Operating Systems) that don’t give high disk priority to tasks that do.
• A perverse attitude prevalent today in programmers that it is wicked to even think about efficient code except in cases where the first cut at code is utterly unusable.
• Pathological interference between apps, e.g. an indexer locking out files in the process of being updated.

The GUI (Graphic User Interface) has greatly slowed down data entry by making the user take his hands from keyboard to mouse and back, sometimes for every field. There are also long delays and new forms are loaded over the net. We had far more efficient data entry in the days of DOS.