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Hrm, do you think my article was too long? Anyhow, yes, you can make arbitrarily complex measurements. The point was more human than technical: some data is b
by jfarmer 19y ago
Hrm, do you think my article was too long?
Anyhow, yes, you can make arbitrarily complex measurements.
The point was more human than technical: some data is better than none, even if it's not fine-grained. It results in fewer pointless arguments and better decisions overall.
- apathy 19y agosome data is better than none, even if it's not fine-grained. Not necessarily. If the features of your small data sample are unrepresentative or poorly analyzed, you run the risk of distorting your priors and making a poorer decision than that expected by chance alone. We can chew the fat on this one for a very, very long time :-)
- jfarmer 19y agoOk, you're right. I'm a mathematician by training so these technical concerns don't escape me. Still, I tried to keep my point constrained to those situations where you don't run into decisions not easily resolved in the manner I described. Sure, if you're wading into a new market, old models or assumptions might be incorrect. Or if you need to make a decision now and don't have time to gather data your intuition and savvy are going to be instrumental. But for most day-to-day, pedestrian decisions around software, web development, and business there's plenty of data that will tell you whether you should zig or zag.