Do other Python GUI toolkits require this?

[Antoon Pardon]

On 2007-04-19, sjdevnull at yahoo.com <sjdevnull at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 19, 6:54 am, Antoon Pardon <apar... at forel.vub.ac.be> wrote:
>> I don't know how you come to the conclusion that it is a mathematical
>> absurdity but consider this: If you find that common usage propagates
>> something that is incorrect, should we just shrug it off or should we
>> attemp a correction?
>
> 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.

How much sense does it really make? Suppose we would talk about
an income curve. Would you not prefer a steep curve over a shalow
one? What about a productivity curve? It is all about the progress
made in something.

So how much sense does it make that a steep curve in earnings and
productivity is good but a steep curve in learning is bad?

> Trying to apply a mathematical definition to an English-language
> phrase is prone to incorrect outcomes.
>
> b) The purpose of language is to communicate.  In English, if a phrase
> now means something in common usage, then that is (one of) its current
> definition(s)--this is possibly different from some other languages
> where there is an attempt to have an "officially sanctioned" set of
> definitions and spellings that may differ from common usage.  If you
> find that everyone else means something when they say a phrase, you'd
> best learn what they mean if you want to be speaking the same language
> (and hence be able to communicate with them).

But the problem is that even if this would be only a way to communicate
in englishi, a lot of people get the wrong idea about real curves from
this idiom, as this thread shows. So even if you only want to communicate
one specific idea that comes accross as intended, you also propagate
a lot of nonsense with it.

-- 
Antoon Pardon