Do other Python GUI toolkits require this?

[Max Erickson]

I must confess I don't follow you here. A rate is a single
number. Now some second variable can be a function of this rate
or vice versa but I can't make out what this second variable is
supposed to be from your explanation.

I'm stopping after this because it is offtopic noise, but take a
graph of position vs time for an object; the slope of that graph
happens to be related to the velocity of the object, so you can
'see' the velocity of the object even though the graph is of
position and time. The slope of the graph can be said to describe a
rate.

(and a graph that showed the movement of the world around that
object would be quite different, and similar lines on those
different graphs would thus elecit rather different descriptions,
which is the point, pretending that all graphs of learning curves
only describe what you assume they describe and then being pedantic
about what information can be inferred from the graphs isn't going
to get you anywhere, hence this thread)

My english is full of colloquialisms and idioms and I am not
interested in learning "Antoon Pardon's Dictionary of Exact Usage",
so I fear that further explanation will be fruitless.


max

 

[Paul Boddie]

What else is effort than the time you spent on it?

What's the difference between watching a television programme called
"Useless Celebrity Factoids" for half an hour and spending the same
amount of time studying for an exam involving useful information where
you might also need to show some level of understanding of the subject
matter?

If that's not comparing similar measures of information, what's the
difference between studying for an exam in a subject whose
prerequisites are familiar to you and studying for one in an
unfamiliar field, both for the same amount of time?

Paul

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

But if a wrong idea is circulating and nobody ever tries to correct it,
people will continue with the wrong idea. All I did was make a simple
remark, that as I suggested anyone could ignore, but that would allow
those willing to learn, to further investigate.

But is it a "wrong idea" if 999 people interpret the phrase one way,
and just 1 insists upon an interpretation that, while correct in a small
technical area, results in misunderstanding when speaking with the other
999?

The lay person sees "productivity" as movement on the x-axis (I'm
"here" [start of job], I need to get "there" [end of job]). They see the
y-axis as % of total knowledge required to achieve some amount of
productivity. Slope then indicates the difficulty level in achieving
enough knowledge to demonstrate movement in productivity. Linear time is
not a direct component in this view.

I'm tempted to invoke Humpty-Dumpty and Alice... But, instead, I
think I'll just fade away from this arena, a la Cheshire Cat... Leaving
to last, the <G>


--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
(e-mail address removed) (e-mail address removed)
HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
(Bestiaria Support Staff: (e-mail address removed))
HTTP://www.bestiaria.com/

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:33:19 -0300, (e-mail address removed)

a) In English, "learning curve" is not restricted to a mathematical
plot--Webster's also defines it as "the course of progress made in
learning something". In that context, adding the adjective steep
("extremely or excessively high...STEEP implies such sharpness of
pitch that ascent or descent is very difficult") makes sense.

Trying to apply a mathematical definition to an English-language
phrase is prone to incorrect outcomes.

I don't know if it's used in English, but my uncle says "open the light"
and "close the light". From an electrician point of view, that's wrong: to
turn the light on you have to close the circuit, and the light is off when
the circuit is open.
A biologyst won't aggree on the common usage of "crocodrile tears". Such
expressions should not be understood technically (I think they're known as
idioms).
As English is not my native language, I sometimes got puzzled by some
idioms. How much Python can be put in a nutshell? Almost nothing, so for
me, the famous book starts diminished from the title.
Or, I would not consider "sleepping tight" a good thing, I prefer big and
comfortable beds...

This is getting close to win the "longest off topic thread" award.

 

[Jorge Godoy]

But is it a "wrong idea" if 999 people interpret the phrase one way,
and just 1 insists upon an interpretation that, while correct in a small
technical area, results in misunderstanding when speaking with the other
999?

You remind me of my grandpa: if all soldiers but one are marching with
the "wrong" foot ahead, who's wrong?

 

[Roel Schroeven]

hg schreef:

You never know ... was it a 'steep curve' ?

To stay in the general style of this thread, that largely depends on how
you interpret that expression I would say yes, but judge for
yourself; this is the rock he was climbing when he fell:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:Roy-måtche.jpg

It's completely true that Belgium is a pretty flat country, but there
are some regions featuring a somewhat more pronounced differences in height.

 

[Liqueur Knob?]

Then is a steeply increasing curve in the number of homocides or
suicides good? Surely if a thing is bad then an overall increase over
time is bad and a very sharp increase in a short time is really bad?

And I'm not saying that learning is bad, only that your logic or
argument may be...

Wayne

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

You remind me of my grandpa: if all soldiers but one are marching with
the "wrong" foot ahead, who's wrong?

The drill sergeant who needs to jump a count <G>
--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
(e-mail address removed) (e-mail address removed)
HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
(Bestiaria Support Staff: (e-mail address removed))
HTTP://www.bestiaria.com/

 

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

Hendrik van Rooyen schreef:

I'm not sure if this adds anything of interest (well actually I'm pretty
sure it doesn't), but our king Albert I was a fanatic mountain climber,
until he died from a fall in 1934.

Thanks - I was not aware of that.
Adds a whole new dimension to the phrase:

"The Fall of a King"

What was he climbing when he fell, btw?

- Hendrik

 

[Roel Schroeven]

Hendrik van Rooyen schreef:

Thanks - I was not aware of that.
Adds a whole new dimension to the phrase:

"The Fall of a King"

What was he climbing when he fell, btw?

A rock in Marche-les-Dames, see the picture at
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:Roy-måtche.jpg

That's in the Walloon region; Flanders is of course much more flat than
that.

 

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Well if you want to do it that way, nobody can stop you, but people
in the habit of processing numbers usually put the time on the X-axis
like in time spend learning or exercising and put the other value
on the Y-axis.

You seem to live in a very limited world, where bezier-curves (note the
name...)
are parametrized over t, but rendered on the x/y-axis happily going
forth and back and whatnot.

If using knowledge as the x-axis and effort on the y-axis, the figure of
speech makes perfect sense.

That is because people prefer a curve going up and down while moving
to the right instead of going left and right while moving up.

Which is obviously something people don't want to do in this context,
because "going down" doesn't make too much sense here, doesn't it? Or do
you want to cram the process of unlearning in the little figure of
speech as well?


But even a perfectly sense-making explanation can be found, I doubt that
you will ever acknowledge that you did make a mistake on this one - as
you always (or better never) do...

 

[Kevin Walzer]

From the introduction to PyObjC, the Python-Objective-C bridge on Mac
OS X:

"As described in Objective-C for PyObjC users the creation of
Objective-C objects is a two-stage process. To initialize objects, first
call a class method to allocate the memory (typically alloc), and then
call an initializer (typically starts with init). Some classes have
class methods which perform this behind the scenes, especially classes
that create cached, immutable, or singleton instances."

An example:

myObject = NSObject.alloc().init()

I know Tkinter doesn't require any manual memory allocation of this
sort. Does wxPython, PyQt, PyGtk require anything like this when
creating objects?

Thanks to all for an illuminating thread on the mathematical
implications of "learning curve" and other aspects. This thread has
wandered pretty far from my original question (above) but I got at least
one useful answer, so I am grateful.

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

If using knowledge as the x-axis and effort on the y-axis, the figure of
speech makes perfect sense.

I'd sworn to have faded away yesterday, but... "We're all crazy
here"...

For progress reports, I've never been asked how "high" I've gotten,
but rather how "far"... which visualizes as movement on a horizontal.
Management isn't happy is progress has not made visible movement if I'm
held back by a large amount of stuff to be learned before movement can
be made.

Progress, in this form, is not linear time, but rather a %completion
of the assigned task. Measuring the vertical as a %age of knowledge of
the entire subject, something like (very silly example) "hello world" as
a console application does not require 100% knowledge to complete (Need
to know how to start applications [editor and Python] on command line,
need to know how to edit text [minimal: insert/delete/move
cursor/save-exit], need to know format for string literal and one Python
keyword [print "hello world"])... That all comes to what? Maybe 1% of
the total of command line, editor, and Python language? Yet with this 1%
of knowledge, the assignment can be completed, and progress to that
completion is rapid (if one knows how to invoke applications on the
command line, one is 30% complete).

Change this to "hello world" using a GUI toolkit. Suddenly one needs
to learn a massive amount of GUI knowledge just to create the empty base
window. No progress toward completion can be seen until one has reached
this point -- say 50% of the toolkit; then one has to learn additional
to add widgets for the text, etc.
--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
(e-mail address removed) (e-mail address removed)
HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
(Bestiaria Support Staff: (e-mail address removed))
HTTP://www.bestiaria.com/

 

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Kevin Walzer a écrit :
(snip)

Thanks to all for an illuminating thread on the mathematical
implications of "learning curve" and other aspects. This thread has
wandered pretty far from my original question (above)

Noticed this too ?-)

 

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Kevin Walzer a écrit :

From the introduction to PyObjC, the Python-Objective-C bridge on Mac
OS X:

"As described in Objective-C for PyObjC users the creation of
Objective-C objects is a two-stage process. To initialize objects, first
call a class method to allocate the memory (typically alloc), and then
call an initializer (typically starts with init). Some classes have
class methods which perform this behind the scenes, especially classes
that create cached, immutable, or singleton instances."

An example:

myObject = NSObject.alloc().init()

I know Tkinter doesn't require any manual memory allocation of this
sort. Does wxPython, PyQt, PyGtk require anything like this when
creating objects?

PyObjC is not a GUI toolkit, it's a bridge between Python and
Objective-C (a smalltalk-inspired OO superset of ansi C).

And FWIW, under the hood, Python also uses this 2-stages
instanciation/initialisation scheme (methods __new__ and __init__), even
if it doesn't requires you to call them both explicitly.

 

[Guest]

You can assume all you want, but no serious person processing numbers
would choose axes like that.

The vast majority of world population is not into "processing numbers",
so why should they care?

 

[Antoon Pardon]

What's the difference between watching a television programme called
"Useless Celebrity Factoids" for half an hour and spending the same
amount of time studying for an exam involving useful information where
you might also need to show some level of understanding of the subject
matter?

Do you want to discus principals or the practical problem in setting
up a study?

If that's not comparing similar measures of information, what's the
difference between studying for an exam in a subject whose
prerequisites are familiar to you and studying for one in an
unfamiliar field, both for the same amount of time?

Same question. If you are looking at the principals there is no
problem, those already familiar now, already have spent time/effort
at the subject. So you should calculate that time too.

In practice those setting up a study, try to pick a activity
noone is very familiar with.

 

[Antoon Pardon]

You seem to live in a very limited world, where bezier-curves (note the
name...)
are parametrized over t, but rendered on the x/y-axis happily going
forth and back and whatnot.

I'm not talking about bezier-curves or any parametric curve, because
it doesn't make sense to talk about steep and shalow curves then, since
there is no implication of hard/slow easy/fast associated then
with steep or shalow, you might as well use polar coordinates.

If using knowledge as the x-axis and effort on the y-axis, the figure of
speech makes perfect sense.

That is an after the fact interpretation. There certain
rules/conventions in picking your variables when you want to draw a
curve. The association of steep and shalow of a curve with some real
world implication depends on those rules/conventions.

If you don't follow those rules/conventions don't think you can get
a message across by saying steep, because any data can be put on
a steep curve if you are allowed to pick how to draw your axes.

So your statement doesn't mean much more than: After I have played
with the paper, turned it over, rotated it a bit, the curve looks
steep.

Which is obviously something people don't want to do in this context,
because "going down" doesn't make too much sense here, doesn't it? Or do
you want to cram the process of unlearning in the little figure of
speech as well?

Then those people shouldn't refer to curves. If people want to refer
to curves in order to bring a message accross then the message should
make sense to those familiar with curves. I can understand that some
people find that doing so, makes their message feel wrong. Not a
problem, use an other metaphor. Don't twist the metaphor to get
a message that feels all right to you but brings nonsense to those
who are familiar with the metaphor.

But even a perfectly sense-making explanation can be found, I doubt that
you will ever acknowledge that you did make a mistake on this one - as
you always (or better never) do...

As far as I can see I don't differ from most people in this respect
on this news group.

 

[Antoon Pardon]

The vast majority of world population is not into "processing numbers",
so why should they care?

They don't have to care at all. But if they don't care about how curves
are usually organized, maybe they are better of not using curves to
bring a message across, since it risks to bring the wrong message to
those who are familiar with curves.

 

[Antoon Pardon]

But if a wrong idea is circulating and nobody ever tries to correct it,
people will continue with the wrong idea. All I did was make a simple
remark, that as I suggested anyone could ignore, but that would allow
those willing to learn, to further investigate.

But is it a "wrong idea" if 999 people interpret the phrase one way,
and just 1 insists upon an interpretation that, while correct in a small
technical area, results in misunderstanding when speaking with the other
999?

The lay person sees "productivity" as movement on the x-axis (I'm
"here" [start of job], I need to get "there" [end of job]).

I dare you. Give some people some data: Like the productivity of each
month in a year and ask them to put those numbers on a graph. I bet most
will put the months on the x-axis and the productivity on the y-axis.