On 4/3/2011 11:18 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 8:39 PM, John Francis<[email protected]> wrote:
But having "a steep learning curve" would actually be a good thing.
What people actually mean, when they say this, is that the program in
question has a high bar to get over before you can use it proficiently.
With a steep learning curve, you'd leasrn enough to get over that bar
in a short span of time. With a shallow learning curve, though, you
would have to spend far more time before you became proficient.
That, in my opinion, would be a far less desirable situation.
Hmm.
The metaphor of 'a steep learning curve' is to say that something with
this characteristic takes a lot of effort to learn ... there's a lot
to learn in a relatively short space of time to achieve a proficient
skill. Kind of like climbing a steep hill .. it takes a lot more
effort in unit time to achieve the top of the hill if the hill is
steep. .
With an "easy" or gradual learning curve, one doesn't have to work as
hard to become skilled ... the distance may or may not be as high, but
the slope is longer so it's easier to move along it.
Come to think of it, it was probably a poor choice of metaphor to begin
with, inasmuch as I don't really have any time constraints to deal
with. To the extent that there is a steep learning curve, it's more a
function of my ability to get a grasp on the application before getting
frustrated and putting it off for another time.
So, instead of using the learning curve analogy, I probably just should
have said, "Me no grok The GIMP."
-- Walt
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