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Statistics for Software

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11–17 of 17 posts

Re: Statistics for Software

#12
post #7

"When the software industry gets to a point where it leverages this analysis as much as the hardware industry, the technology world will undoubtedly have become a cleaner place." Hear hear! Quality control is usually one of the _primary_ drivers in new hardware development. With software, I find it's often tacked on at the end.

I am not sure that is coming anytime soon. Generally, You have the ability to update software products more cheaply than hardware products. Also, people get quite a bit of utility out of buggy products, people will jump on a beta if they think it is useful. Given that, half finished buggy software products have incentives to be released with less quality control. This of course will vary by use, no one is getting in…

Exactly this. Reminds me of this quote:

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."

- Reid Hoffman

Re: Statistics for Software

#13
post #7

"When the software industry gets to a point where it leverages this analysis as much as the hardware industry, the technology world will undoubtedly have become a cleaner place." Hear hear! Quality control is usually one of the _primary_ drivers in new hardware development. With software, I find it's often tacked on at the end.

I am not sure that is coming anytime soon. Generally, You have the ability to update software products more cheaply than hardware products. Also, people get quite a bit of utility out of buggy products, people will jump on a beta if they think it is useful. Given that, half finished buggy software products have incentives to be released with less quality control. This of course will vary by use, no one is getting in…

Yes, the ability to quickly update software covers a multitude of sins.

Re: Statistics for Software

#14
Not to sound negative...

Read a paper by Philippe Flajolet, of HyperLogLog fame, and aim to completely understand it. By the end of it, you'll learn stats, analysis and bunch of other things.

Just to add: The more you cry along the way the better.

Re: Statistics for Software

#16

OP writes really well. Found myself reading the README of his Python web framework (which I'll never use) just because of the clarity, style and pedagogical approach. Hope there's more on the way.

Whoa! With praise like this, how couldn't there be more? Thank you!

Re: Statistics for Software

#17

I don't really like the idea of throwing data away because it ultimately gives an incomplete view of the system. But, easy solution to solve a hard problem!

Okay. Not really sure why I got downvoted so much. Why am I wrong?

Sampling is fundamental to so much of practical statistics. It's more or less proven and accepted. In real studies, we "throw data away" by just not collecting it in the first place. As long as you do it right, you still get a reliable answer.

But if you've already got it all and it all fits in memory, by all means, hold on to it!

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