From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,76f19a5f656fa576 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin D. Condic" Subject: Re: Embedded Systems Survey Date: 2000/08/04 Message-ID: <398B24E5.A3589056@acm.org>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 654550618 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <398A21B9.DB93DF7B@earthlink.net> Organization: Quadrus Corporation X-Sender: "Marin D. Condic" (Unverified) X-Server-Date: 4 Aug 2000 20:18:24 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-08-04T20:18:24+00:00 List-Id: tmoran@bix.com wrote: > "Mail the postcard" surveys have their own problems. Adding an > innocuous question with answer obviously unknown to the interviewer > is one way of increasing anonymity, even with a numbered postcard or > a face-to-face interviewer. I think it's clever. Since it adds > known noise to lessen error, I suppose it's analogous to dithering > for improving printing. Yeah, but the biggest problem is that of a self selected group. If you're interested in finding a reasonably accurate answer concerning the number of software engineers that prefer/dislike Ada, you need to define the group by some other means. Those who would voluntarily fill out a card in a magazing may be biased heavily by being Ada Hawks or Anti-Ada Bigots. The magazine itself is going to have a biased population of readers in some ways and probably is not going to reflect a reasonable cross section of all software professionals. People are likely to be honest about whether or not they like/dislike a given programming language. It's not like you're asking them something terribly personal or something sensitive which might lead them to lie about it. The problem is identifying a good sample set to ask. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -- Martin Luther King, Jr ======================================================================