Comment by matheusmoreira

16 hours ago

The Windows computer I have to use at work takes over ten seconds to open the calculator. It literally is faster to type the calculation I want into a search engine and get the results back over the network.

The new calculator even manages to screw up basic input. The old calculator accepted both commas and periods as decimal separator inputs. It just worked no matter what I typed in. The new calculator has some sort of "clever" localization where my inputs change depending on the language of the operating system. My language uses commas so of course it only accepts those. Infuriating. Hope whoever coded this is enjoying their promotion.

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matheusmoreira

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1718627440  8 hours ago

Off-topic, but do you know Mozilla Firefox has a builtin calculator and unit conversion in the URL bar? For my personal use I rather use python and GNU units, but I guess for most users that live in the browser instead of the terminal, this could become their default calculator.

    browser.urlbar.suggest.calculator = true

I don't know if you need to restore the urlbar first, before that works.

abustamam  13 hours ago

One of the first projects I made while learning to code was a calculator.

It wasn't very sophisticated. But it was fast and it handled commas and periods. It wasn't localized, but it could be.

Sad to think that me having a month of coding experience made a better product than MSFT, yet whoever coded the calculator is probably making ten times what I am right now.

  • 1718627440  6 hours ago

    Yeah, I think that is a common first task when learning to program. Learning about strings: write a first-grade-math expression calculator. Learning Java: make a GUI calculator. Now convert between prefix, infix and postfix notation. This is all even before you learn about classes or files.

  • matheusmoreira  6 hours ago

    The new calculator isn't just slow to open, it seems to have actual input lag too. God I miss the old calculator.

    To me it's not sad, it's infuriating. This corporation is worth a trillion dollars. Why can't they do their jobs? I'm sure the old calculator could be maintained and improved without screwing it up beyond belief. Send us some fat stacks and we'll do it.

    • lenkite  4 hours ago

      Its AI and not humans that make up that trillion dollars and its AI enshloppification that created the new calculator. You are not AI - no fat stack for you.

angry_octet  10 hours ago

Is that Windows, or the EDR that is hooking every system call and pinning a whole core with analytics?

  • matheusmoreira  7 hours ago

    The old notepad would still open instantly so that can't be it. The updated machines with the new notepad are just as infuriating.

    Reminds me of the shitty gamer laptop manufacturer apps that would take over a minute to display a glorified rectangle on the screen. All this to configure keyboard LEDs. I reverse engineered that garbage and made a Linux version that works instantly, proving their incompetence.