Dave, et al -- ...and then David Yitzchak Cohen said... % % On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 11:30:05AM -0500, David T-G wrote: % % > % - 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 % > % > So? "Everyone" "knows" that Outhouse is a mail program, but not many % > here (and definitely not I :-) are content to go that route or even let % > the assumption stand. % % Did anybody ever show you a reason to believe Outlook is a bona fide % email program? I know, for instance, that DOS and Windows fail miserably People send mail with it all of the time. No, that isn't good enough for me, but neither is using the shape of the graphed curve to apply a third criterion to the definition of the term at hand. % in multiple criteria for "Operating System" as defined in the early 70s Ah, CPM :-) % by Computer Science textbooks. Given Microsoft's track record of calling % things with names that overestimate their capabilities, I'd be somewhat % hesitant to assume Outlook is an email program just because Microsoft % says so. Oh, I certainly agree :-) I didn't say that *I* believed it! % % Our definition for a learning curve seems to make at least as much % sense as "the original one" (see my related post for more on that), is % more compatible with the reality of "steep curve == difficult to climb" When was the last time you climbed a curve? I only climb hills (and rocks, as noted below). I would argue that the most common physical defintion for curve is 'a relatively smooth bend in a road or other course', while a hill is obviously 'a well-defined natural elevation smaller than a mountain' or 'an incline, especially of a road; a slope'. % which you can't entirely avoid when you start stealing real-world words % to describe not-so-abstract Mathematical phenomena. (When you describe Agreed. % abstract phenomena, nobody knows what you're talking about, so it doesn't % matter - I'll grant you that much.) Also agreed. I fully admit we are in an area which requires definition. Of course, Rene's attempt to do so got us into this mess in the first place ;-) % % > % - Secondly, the reason people talk about a learning curve in the first % > % place is because they view it in two other dimensions: progress and % > % > Not necessarily. Not at all indeed. Not I, for instance. I visualize % > the learning curve as the path from "not knowing" (low) to "knowing" % > (high), and climbing that height in less time (left to right) is good; % > the steeper the better. The curve is an indication of both how much % > effort is going in and how capable one is. % % Even in your own visualization one may smell a rat: climbing your path in % less time (left to right) implies traversing an awfully long path (which Sure. % appears to be painfully steep looking at that graph of yours) in a very % short amount of time - sounds like a rock climbing expedition to me :-( But the graph is not meant to literally represent some hill (or cliff)! Just because we call it a bell curve doesn't mean that we expect to be able to strike the paper (or chart or computer screen or ...) and get a ringing tone! Here, think of it as a rocket's trajectory instead of a curve. You want to be on a fast rocket which goes up quickly instead of in a little plane which has to struggle to gain altitude. Now think of which one is 'better' in terms of the goal of getting 'up there' to a certain knowledge level. % % If you just give up on this whole "what you get per unit of time" idea % and instead plot effort vs. gain, you end up with a familiar "what you % give vs. what you get" curve, which even sounds right. If you just give up on this whole "it has to look like a hill" thing then we wouldn't be having this discussion :-) % % Incidentally, there's another common real-world use for the learning % curve idea: what you can do vs. how much you had to learn. Notice that % the curve resulting from this derivation agrees with the curve immediately % above, not with "the original." Sure. I can think of common real-world uses for lots of things that aren't correct. Were I not so picky I might even say "I could care less" about them (except I *am* picky and so I *could* care a lot less but not in the way that most people don't when they say that). % % For times when the original definition makes sense and the common one % doesn't (e.g. Web == what most people call web site; Web site == what % most people call data center; etc.), by all means use the original (and % give footnotes to define words, if necessary - just like you already do % when you use technical terms that your audience may not understand). % For times when the original definition (if this even was the original % definition) makes less sense than the common one, I'd lean towards the % common one in the absense of any evidence to the contrary. To each his own. I tend to lean toward Doing It Right whenever possible and helping others discover what's right along the way. Why else would I have http://justpickone.org/hoaxinfo.html and take the time to follow up on urban legend emails? % % - Dave % % -- % Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor? % It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right? % % Please visit this link: % http://rotter.net/israel HAND :-D -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) davidtg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) davidtgwork@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!
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