Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 08:09:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Matt Behrens <matt@zigg.com> To: Michael Robinson <robinson@netrinsics.com> Cc: Jeff.Baker@acadhotline.net.au, stephen@math.missouri.edu, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Newbee Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9908270756001.3866-100000@megaweapon.zigg.com> In-Reply-To: <199908270528.NAA27601@netrinsics.com>
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[This thread really doesn't belong in -stable. Followups directed
to -chat, which I really must subscribe to one of these days. :-)]
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Michael Robinson wrote:
: >Any unix like OS will have a steep initial learning curve, and there
: >is a lot of learning to do.
:
: What is a "steep learning curve"? Where does that term come from?
Picture this, if you will:
A graph with two axes, the vertical being time and knowledge
invested, and the horizontal being what you can accomplish.
Obviously everything starts at zero. With any UNIXish system, you
can expect that your first bit of learning you must invest will be
more than you get out of the system. Therefore the line drawn as
you invest time and learning knowledge goes upward steeply while
travelling to the right slowly.
However, the design philosophy of UNIX is quite ingenious, IMO.
The curve will eventually start to flatten much more, so that you
invest a lot less to accomplish more results. To contrast that,
if you take a system like Windows NT your initial curve does give
you quite a few immediate rewards right away, but you find as you
go that your curve starts to steepen -- taking much more investment
to accomplish the same thing.
Eventually with NT you will also reach a point where you cannot do
it at all and must rely on others -- this is where the beauty of
open source OSs come in: if you care to invest, you can make your
OS do *anything*.
I'd draw a picture but this is ASCII mail... oh, heck, I'll do it
anyway... just don't laugh. (And don't ask me what the learning
curve is to draw ASCII graphs.) :-)
| ,
| , .
| ,.
| UNIX- . ,
| . ,
| . ,
| . , -NT
| . ,
|. ,
__|.________________
|
HTH. (God, that graph really is terrible, isn't it?) :-)
Matt Behrens <matt@zigg.com>
Owner/Administrator, zigg.com
Chief Engineer, Nameless IRC Network
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