On 8/25/00 10:07 AM Stephen Turner ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote, inter alia:
>>
>> Maybe it's just me, but I cannot agree with the "ethical" stances taken
>> dismissively by most of the thread. [...]
>> I see no reason to limit the scope of their
>> enquiry, even though the queries are fuzzy, and the results fuzzier. [...]
>> Then again it's
>> also a defense of tolerance and pragmatism.
>
>I don't see it as an "ethical" stance to refuse to provide garbage, but as a
>"pragmatic" one. Can I defend the results to my customers?
>
>I get lots of mails like this defending "approximations", or as you put
>it "fuzziness". The problem is, I don't think they're approximations. I
>strongly suspect they're often closer to 5 or 10 times out. Think of it this
>way and you'll perhaps realise why analog doesn't provide them.
I've found that while alot of these 'fuzzy' numbers can be very
misleading when taken literally, they can be very helpful when
interpreted properly. Take the average time spent viewing a page, for
example. If you think that this indicates a true time spent by real
people you can get very much the wrong impression, but if you compare the
times for two pages at the same site, the comparison can be both
meaningful and quite useful.
It doesn't matter if the numbers are off by a factor of ten compared to
what I would get if I watched real people reading pages and timed them,
as long as I'm comparing two numbers that are off by exactly the same
factor. Since the processes that cause the timing to be wrong apply in
identical ways to pages at the same site, it can be a meaningful
measurement, when use comparatively within a site.
Jason
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dr. Seuss books . . . can be read and enjoyed on several levels. For
example, 'One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish' can be deconstructed
as a searing indictment of the narrow-minded binary counting system.
-- Peter van der Linden, Expert C Programming, Deep C Secrets
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