[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:	The Joy of Lex
Notice:	A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:	THEBAY::SYSTEM

Created:	Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1192
Total number of notes:	42769

20.0. "Rules of Thumb" by SOURCE::CHRISTENSEN () Fri Oct 12 1984 14:18

  Tom Parker, in his book "Rules of Thumb" (Houghton Mifflin, 1983),
  defines a rule of thumb as a homemade recipe for making a guess.  
  It's an easy-to-remember guide that falls somewhere between a 
  mathematical formula and a shot in the dark. 

	He continues,
	"...it is not a Murphy's Law.  Murphy says that things 
	will take longer than we think; a rule of thumb says how
	much longer.  Neither do most old-time sayings and expres-
	sions qualify as rules of thumb.  While a proverb says that
	a stitch in time saves nine, a rule of thumb says to allow
	one inch of yarn for every stitch on a knitting needle.
	A maxim cautions us not to risk more than we can afford to
	lose; a rule of thumb warns us not to lose more than twenty
	times the betting limit in a single poker game.

	Most of all, a rule of thumb is not always right.  It is
	simply a personal tool for making things work right most of
	the time, under most conditions."

  The DEC world must be full of examples...name some!

T.R	Title	User	Date	Lines
20.1		ALIEN::SZETO	`Sat Oct 13 1984 11:27`	12
	Every project to be funded costs x person-years, where x is an integer. (This means that nothing costs less than one person-year.) Dates are understood to be the end of the time period (month, quarter, fiscal year, etc.) by those who have to deliver something, and the beginning of the period by those who are on the receiving end. The actual time of delivery is at least one time period after the date quoted by the would-be deliverer. --Simon P.S. I don't know what this note has to do with language.
20.2		ELIXIR::TRAVIS	`Mon Oct 15 1984 01:28`	7
	At the programming task level, to convert self-estimate of time required into actual calendar time which will elapse before completion, round up to next higher time unit, then multiply by 2! (credit due to Michael Hyde for this one) e.g. original estimate = 2 days; actual elapsed time estimate = 2 weeks. original estimate = 3 weeks; actual elapsed = 2 months.
20.3		BOOKIE::PARODI	`Tue Oct 16 1984 11:23`	6
	Let's descend to the trivial... Does anyone remember what the original "Rule of Thumb" was? JP
20.4		PHOBOS::SPEAKE	`Tue Oct 16 1984 17:11`	5
	The distance from the tip of your thumb to the first knuckle is one inch. The original may have been the king's thumb at least until the first of the metric kings were produced. Tom Speake
20.5		PSGVAX::CHRISTENSEN	`Wed Oct 17 1984 09:42`	3
	Ah, yes, and then there's the theory that "rule of thumb" comes from an old English law that said a man could legally beat his wife and children with a stick no thicker than his thumb.
20.6		PHOBOS::SPEAKE	`Wed Oct 17 1984 12:15`	5
	That may be a rule of thumb, but it may not be to thumb others. Maybe I'm just being thilly. -Tom
20.7		REX::MINOW	`Mon Oct 22 1984 17:05`	8
	The first day I worked at Dec, I was being trained on Mumps. The software specialist who did the training (forgot his name) said: if the salesman says the customer needs 16K words, write down 20K. Ahh, those were the days. Martin/