Re: Off switch blues

In article <uce-731E70.08373102112008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Gregory Weston <uce@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <barmar-09AB6F.12091901112008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Barry Margolin <barmar@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So it logs that it happened and goes back to sleep, like I said.

What's "it?" What happens if "it" (or perhaps a completely different
"it") wants to do something other than simple logging? Again, you're

"It" is the operating system.

taking a specific example that doesn't apply to you and then saying the
idea being exemplified doesn't apply to anyone. Maybe I want my notebook
to actually do real work for the next few hours tucked under my monitor
stand. I don't need it to be plugged into anything and I don't need to
see the screen; I just need it to chug along. Tickling the USB with my
thumb (drive) is the easiest way to do that.

Come on, do you really believe what you're saying? It seems like you're
making up a straw man to support your argument. Do you really believe
that someone would UNPLUG something with the express purpose of waking
up the computer?

Here's what the Apple documentation says: "To wake your computer from
sleep, press a key on the keyboard, or click the mouse. If you¹re using
a portable, open the display. If your computer came with an Apple
Remote, press any button on the remote." Nothing about unplugging thumb
drives, keyboards, monitors, printers, etc.



The issue isn't that it wakes up (the USB architecture effectively
requires this), the problem is that it STAYS awake, even though the user
hasn't taken any action that could reasonably be interpreted as wanting
to use the computer. He hasn't typed anything, opened the lid, or moved
the mouse.

There's space between "wanting to use the computer" and "wanting the
computer to remain awake for an arbitrary amount of time for some
purpose" as illustrated above. The solution for the machine that wakes

"Remain awake" implies that it's already awake, not that you've already
put it to sleep. At the moment you wake the computer, don't you have to
tell it what that purpose is?

up due to events the user doesn't care about is to configure *that*
machine to sleep after a certain amount of inactivity. Granted sometimes
the machine may fall asleep if the user is "using" it in way that's
fairly passive for an extended period of time, but there's a solution
for that, too; a program that prevents sleep by virtue of running is a
few lines of code. (I know this because I wrote it 6 months ago in
response to someone on Usenet looking for such a thing.) Make it a login
item and as long as you log out when you don't intend to use your
machine it should work as you want. If you need more control, adding the
ability to define and recognize a hot corner to suppress sleep may
expand the source of the program to as much as a whole printed page.

I expect the computer to go to sleep when I select Apple->Sleep, and
wake up when I do one of the actions described in the documentation. Is
that really so unreasonable?



You can always come up with weird cases that 0.1% of the time might be a
reason to wake up, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to implement
the system that way. Default behavior should handle the normal cases,
not one-in-a-million situations that few users would expect.

But that's the problem. You're assuming that *your* situation is the
normal one. How do you know your situation isn't the weird 0.1% case?
Where's your data that justifies the expense inherent in changing the
current behavior?

You also seem to be making the same assumption, so where's your data
that shows that users expect disconnecting USB devices to wake the
computer?

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Arlington, MA
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