3 ms·

How is this NOT ranking. You are using the logical fallacy of Reification (the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object) https://en.wikiped

by baldfat 11y ago

How is this NOT ranking. You are using the logical fallacy of Reification (the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29. What real world example at all works with numbers like you are saying "[1, 1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 10000]". When you are talking about specific people with specific skills you can't go abstract. Average when talking a population group in skills is ranking just like in Standardized Testing. Yes half the children in the America are bellow average and the larger the number the more this is true. Likewise the lower the number the less this is true. We are talking tens of thousands of people. EDIT: Oh I think you looking at this like average house hold income with Bill Gates throwing off the average possibly? Well we are talking about only one thing and that is the skills of a programmer compared to the skills fo other programmers. Just the same as the average math skills of children. This is why we have percentiles and my argument still holds on. Skills are not like money where one person has $60,000,000,000 and another has $100.

ajuc 11y ago
Call it "median developer" and I'm OK with that. Average is a different thing. Median developer is by definition a developer that is better or equal to 50% of developers. > the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object We're talking abstractions from the start. The only abstraction all my posts here rely on is the assumption that skill level is 1-dimensional. And you started using that assumption (by referring to average developer). Real world example: There are 10000 programmers. Many of the programmers that are just starting to learn have similar skills to each other. Some of them work for a few years already. Their skill levels start to diverge. Many of them never develop their skills too much (because they never need to and aren't self-motivated enough). Some of the programmers got lucky, work in places that allow/require them to learn forever, and become very, very good. There are few of them, and their skills vary widely. There are tons of people near the bottom, and very few people near the top. It's natural consequence of the amount of work and focus it takes to move from the bottom to the top. Ranking them hides some of the differences, but not all (because it's much more common for people to have the same rank near the low end of the spectrum, where there is much more of them, than near the top - where there is just a few people separated by big gaps). So, when you took ranks from these people you would get sth like below (1=worst, 10000=best, if your ranking works the other way - reverse it it still works the same) [1 (repeated 20 times), 2 (repeated 15 times), 3 (repeated 10 times), 4(repeated 5 times), ..., 100, ..., 10000] - so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Average in statistics contains the following mean, median, mode, range and more. This (Not trying to be mean or saying you are trying to do this) pseudo-intelligent attack on average because they heard a cool attack on mean when it comes to income inequality isn't pertinent to speaking about above and bellow average. Real world example: It is still an non-measurable skill set. > so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value You also mixing up vocabulary your still taking average = mean BUT average also means median. Here is real world ranking of skills (Math, Science, English and Reading) http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-percentiles-and-score-rankings http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-percentiles-and-score-rankin... Once again what scores are you comparing? When I went to Graduate School I had to do GRE and MAT test and I needed to be over 70% percentile on the test just to be average in my field of study (Theology (highest of all fields of study while Education had one of the lowest scores which makes me laugh) This had HUGE implications on my later PhD program acceptance. I couldn't say I was above average in my field because I scored really high. I had to be better then well over 75% of the people taking the test in my field of study. Just because there are a ton of beginners that start and leave that doesn't mean that there isn't a middle and that middle ground will have great skills above the learners. I counter the argument on this paper discounting average developers and placing the blame on their co-workers and environment. Average workers are not to be looked down on.
  - ajuc 11y ago
    To even speak about any average you have to have total order defined. And also addition and division (if you speak about arithmetic one). What is the average fruit from a set of 10 different apples and 3 different oranges? It was your assumption that skill level of 2 developers can be compared. And it's not an useless theorethical distinction. In lay terms: most programmers are worse than average skill level of all programmers. I even showed you real world example. IT is growing very fast, so most people are beginners. I'm not trying to look down on anybody. Being better developer doesn't mean you are a better person, and I'm not above average IMO anyway. EDIT: I looked it up (I'm not native English speaker), and you were right about the math terminology. In Polish average=mean=średnia. Damn false friends. So, if you meant average as median I agree.

by baldfat 11y ago

ajuc 11y ago

Call it "median developer" and I'm OK with that. Average is a different thing. Median developer is by definition a developer that is better or equal to 50% of developers. > the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object We're talking abstractions from the start. The only abstraction all my posts here rely on is the assumption that skill level is 1-dimensional. And you started using that assumption (by referring to average developer). Real world example: There are 10000 programmers. Many of the programmers that are just starting to learn have similar skills to each other. Some of them work for a few years already. Their skill levels start to diverge. Many of them never develop their skills too much (because they never need to and aren't self-motivated enough). Some of the programmers got lucky, work in places that allow/require them to learn forever, and become very, very good. There are few of them, and their skills vary widely. There are tons of people near the bottom, and very few people near the top. It's natural consequence of the amount of work and focus it takes to move from the bottom to the top. Ranking them hides some of the differences, but not all (because it's much more common for people to have the same rank near the low end of the spectrum, where there is much more of them, than near the top - where there is just a few people separated by big gaps). So, when you took ranks from these people you would get sth like below (1=worst, 10000=best, if your ranking works the other way - reverse it it still works the same) [1 (repeated 20 times), 2 (repeated 15 times), 3 (repeated 10 times), 4(repeated 5 times), ..., 100, ..., 10000] - so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value.

baldfat 11y ago
Average in statistics contains the following mean, median, mode, range and more. This (Not trying to be mean or saying you are trying to do this) pseudo-intelligent attack on average because they heard a cool attack on mean when it comes to income inequality isn't pertinent to speaking about above and bellow average. Real world example: It is still an non-measurable skill set. > so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value You also mixing up vocabulary your still taking average = mean BUT average also means median. Here is real world ranking of skills (Math, Science, English and Reading) http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-percentiles-and-score-rankings http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-percentiles-and-score-rankin... Once again what scores are you comparing? When I went to Graduate School I had to do GRE and MAT test and I needed to be over 70% percentile on the test just to be average in my field of study (Theology (highest of all fields of study while Education had one of the lowest scores which makes me laugh) This had HUGE implications on my later PhD program acceptance. I couldn't say I was above average in my field because I scored really high. I had to be better then well over 75% of the people taking the test in my field of study. Just because there are a ton of beginners that start and leave that doesn't mean that there isn't a middle and that middle ground will have great skills above the learners. I counter the argument on this paper discounting average developers and placing the blame on their co-workers and environment. Average workers are not to be looked down on.
- ajuc 11y ago
  To even speak about any average you have to have total order defined. And also addition and division (if you speak about arithmetic one). What is the average fruit from a set of 10 different apples and 3 different oranges? It was your assumption that skill level of 2 developers can be compared. And it's not an useless theorethical distinction. In lay terms: most programmers are worse than average skill level of all programmers. I even showed you real world example. IT is growing very fast, so most people are beginners. I'm not trying to look down on anybody. Being better developer doesn't mean you are a better person, and I'm not above average IMO anyway. EDIT: I looked it up (I'm not native English speaker), and you were right about the math terminology. In Polish average=mean=średnia. Damn false friends. So, if you meant average as median I agree.