From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Aug 27 20:47:20 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com (cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com [24.2.89.207]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FBF914DFE for ; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 20:47:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com) Received: (from cjc@localhost) by cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA17585; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:48:35 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from cjc) From: "Crist J. Clark" Message-Id: <199908280348.XAA17585@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> Subject: Re: Learning curves (was Re: Newbee) In-Reply-To: from David Scheidt at "Aug 27, 99 09:15:03 pm" To: dscheidt@enteract.com (David Scheidt) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:48:34 -0400 (EDT) Cc: crh@outpost.co.nz, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: cjclark@home.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL40 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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