Re: OT: learning curve (was: a little comparison of procmail and maildrop)
* Andrew Sayers <andrew-list-mutt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [031103 14:24]:
> On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 11:20:13PM -0500, David Yitzchak Cohen wrote:
> >
> > I did the first time, and I couldn't find any real explanation for why
> > the equation had to involve time - just a statement that it did.
> >
>
> That's just the definition of the term - similarly, there's no reason
> that I have to be called Andrew, it's just that people won't know what
> you're talking about if you refer to me as "Susan" :p
Whether or not there is an official psychological definition, two points
apply here:
- Firstly, and to your point, given that everyone "knows" that a steep
learning curve is a hard one, people won't know what you're talking
about if you refer to a shallow learning curve
- Secondly, the reason people talk about a learning curve in the first
place is because they view it in two other dimensions: progress and
effort. A hill is a one-dimensional reduction of these two dimensions,
where moving the same distance (as the crow files) takes more effort
when the hill is steep. In the everyday context, the psychological
definition is so much irrelevance.
j