[patrikmcguire]

If it works to get people started then it works. I honestly don't remember how I got started programming - some people rhapsodize about that first moments coding, but for me it was mostly rage at a capricious Java compiler that I felt was always either finding a creative way to do something other than when it should or throwing an error completely unrelated to what was wrong.

After I got past that point everything was gravy. I've always been kind of confused by the learning curve metaphor (If the learning curve is steep, doesn't that mean you learn faster? What's the x and what's the y in this?) but tech now is getting closer to the ideal linear curve, where additional learning and productivity are at a relatively constant proportion no matter what stage you're at rather than being a floor function until you hit a certain level.

Which is awesome.

[robbles]

The phrase "steep learning curve" is probably a misnomer, since the graph most people are talking about has "learning" or "experience" on the dependent axis, and time on the independent axis. So a steep slope on a graph like this would represent something that's very easy to learn.

What most people seem to refer to with this phrase, however, is some kind of exponential function, where the slope is really small (difficult to learn) at the start, and hopefully increases as you get past the initial hurdle.

I guess it stems from confusion with other real-world metaphors, like climbing steep hills, which also happens to be difficult.