Re: [BBC] Programmers who use spaces 'paid more'

[Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca>]

J. Clarke wrote:

> In article <_9B1B.213777$gM7.90022@fx44.am4>, per.s.sandberg@bahnhof.se
> says...
>> 
>> This makes perfect sense !
>> 
>> But this is the same class of statistics that tells you that milk is
>> causing accidents since the number of children in injured in car
>> accidents in an area is direct proportional to the consumption of milk
>> in the same area.
> 
> OK, so tell us what is the third factor that results in programmers who
> use spaces being paid more than programmers who use tabs.

What third factor?
Remember, correlation is not causation. You'd be surprised at how often 
people forget that. You can often take two random, real-world variables and 
find some sort of correlation between them; that doesn't mean that there is 
any causative factor between those variables values - random is random.

As for "programmers who use spaces get paid more than programmers who use 
tabs", here are a few more for you

- there is a direct, linear correlation between
  {US spending on science, space and technology}
  and
  {suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation}. 
- there is a direct, linear correlation between
  {the number of people who drowned by falling into a pool}
  and
  {films that Nicholas Cage appeared in}

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations


-- 
Lew Pitcher
"In Skills, We Trust"
PGP public key available upon request