I guess I’m still old fashion. I like to see progress. If you don’t show me what you’re doing, I lose trust in what I’ve asked you to do for me. Humans show progress in almost everything they do. Can you fold this paper up and seal it in an envelope for me? Sure, I can sit here for a minute and watch you. Thanks. Do you take longer than a minute to fold a page in thirds, open the envelope, stuff the folded sheet, and lick the envelope shut? Oh, so the page isn’t folding in thirds very well? I see you’re frustrated with not getting it aligned correctly. Patience…I’ll wait because I know you’re attempting to fold the page.

So you’re asking what the heck is this all about. Tonight I’ve had yet another instance with this web 2.0 AJAXy stuff. I want to see the events for March in this Google calendar. It’s the end of February and there’s not much left to do in February. After I select March, Google’s calendar says it’s loading. I hope March madness doesn’t take over seven minutes to load the events. Still loading…okay. It’s similar to a Windows hang, but things are still reacting. Loading. How about April? Loading. Do you think it’s fetching anything? Loading. Can I click a February event? Loading. Refresh, click March. Loading.

Anyone hear of timeouts?

At least the interface didn’t freeze up. But you’re letting me select another month. Any month I select fails! There’s this Loading… signal that remains untouched. My internet isn’t blinking. How do I know that I’m not wasting my time! Errg!