Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:48:34 -0400 (EDT) From: "Crist J. Clark" <cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> To: dscheidt@enteract.com (David Scheidt) Cc: crh@outpost.co.nz, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Learning curves (was Re: Newbee) Message-ID: <199908280348.XAA17585@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.990827211028.76059A-100000@shell-2.enteract.com> from David Scheidt at "Aug 27, 99 09:15:03 pm"
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David Scheidt wrote, > On Sat, 28 Aug 1999, Craig Harding wrote: > > > I can't prove it, but I suspect steep=hard has been in use in the > > computer industry for far longer than in the CEF example you gave > > (where the earliest paper that defined the terminology was published > > in 1990). > > I suspect so, since you tend to think steep means hard. A steep hill is > hard to climb. However, what little mathmatican is in me cringes at the > normal usage, because it confounds domain and range. I like to look at > graphs and understand what they mean. When you put time one th Y-axis, you > make it harder for me, and I suspect many others, to do that. It is only a > convention, but it is pretty deep-seated. Not really. In this particular case, the "time" on the ordinate is typically being considered as a cost. Time translates in to hours of training time or hours of less productive work from an employee. You could equally well cast it as a cost in $$. The idea of having the abscissa measure some level of productivity and the ordinate a cost probably is less offensive to anyone who feels some moral outrage at the idea of having "time" on the y-axis. But just to stir the pot a bit, a graph should _generally_ be constructed so that the independent or "free" variable is placed on the x-axis, and the quantity associated with that number be the y-value for tht point. Even if the ordinate is time, most users of such a plot would pose the question, "Hmmm... How much time does it take for my employee (or me) to gain X amount of competence at this task?" They find X on the abscissa, follow it up to Y and find their time. A graph should be made so it is most easy to use. -- Crist J. Clark cjclark@home.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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