Re: A few NG related questions

> My thinking was that amount of traffic is a good indicator of the
> popularity of a product. I don't think anybody can dispute that ORACLE
> is a much more powerful product than SQL server. But if more people
> visit SQL server NGs than ORACLE, and if more now than before, it
> kinda makes you wonder about the trend.

This is why I hate statistics.....someone takes a metric and applies meaning to that metric that didn't exist just to tell a story. Here's a statistic.....85% of all statistics are misleading.

So you have XXX people who visit the Oracle newsgroups and YYY people who visit the SQL Server newsgroups and YYY > XXX. How do you then extrapolate that to some sort of market trend? Maybe it just means that people who use SQL Server are stupid and need more help! Now I'm not saying that this is the case. In fact, I'd never make such a claim. By why didn't you extrapolate that result from your analysis? Or maybe it means that SQL Server people have more time on their hands tending to that one database and therefore have more free time to post to newsgroups. Not my claim, but the jump could be made. Or maybe it means that Oracle people are to obstinate to seek out help. Again, not my claim. Maybe it means that there are *more* Oracle newsgroups and forums to utilize and therefore the questions get spread around to more places. While I don't know this to be true, this is the claim that I am making.

I just feel that there was a metric and that metric doesn't tell anything else other than more people visit the SQL Server newsgroup than the Oracle newsgroup. Any reason *why* is shear conjecture.

Just my 3.14159265 cents worth,
Brian

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Brian Peasland
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