Learning curves (was: Python so far)

[Bijan Parsia]

Will Ware <wware at world.std.com> wrote:

> Brendan Hahn (bhahn at spam-spam.g0-away.com) wrote:
> > [learning curve axes]
> > X is time elapsed, Y is knowledge acquired.  So the common usage of "steep"
> > with regard to learning curves is in fact exactly backwards.  Too late now,
> > though.
> 
> There is a pretty clear analogy to climbing a hill (or a vertical cliff
> face). When climbing a hill the Y axis represents energy or effort.
> Maybe X would make sense as knowledge acquired; then a shallow learning
> curve means you can gain a lot of knowledge with little exhaustion. It's
> not clear that time belongs in there at all (except insofar as your
> effort-per-time has some upper bound).

Yes, this was my point. If I understand things correct, the term
"learning curve", as it was coined by, oh, *psychologists* probably, is
as Brendan put it. Your interpretation is--albeit clever--post facto :)


-- 
Bijan Parsia
http://monkeyfist.com/
...among many things.