this guy wrote a book that will teach you how to name variables, only with 275 pages!
Not a guy.
The Programmer's Brain
11–20 of 104 posts
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#12this guy wrote a book that will teach you how to name variables, only with 275 pages!
You talk as though it's a trivial problem.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#13Interesting that it specifies "speed reading". I think speed reading for code is actually an anti pattern since it is encouraging your biases and guesses instead of actually reading the damn output. If you ever wondered how people ended up programming stochastically and just making random changes I'd say speed reading is part of it
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#14I believe she had an intermediate Excel course on either EDX or Coursera and it was pretty solid. Not a very deep course but the concepts were very well explained.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#15this guy wrote a book that will teach you how to name variables, only with 275 pages!
I could probably fill 275 pages of my team bike shedding on variable names, so that seems reasonable.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#16Interesting that it specifies "speed reading". I think speed reading for code is actually an anti pattern since it is encouraging your biases and guesses instead of actually reading the damn output. If you ever wondered how people ended up programming stochastically and just making random changes I'd say speed reading is part of it
I mean, there's a time and a place for speed reading. Part of being good at speed reading is identifying the areas you need to slow down for and pay attention to.
Another aspect of writing code is to think about future speed readers. Can your code be skimmed and understood on a cursory level?
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#17this guy wrote a book that will teach you how to name variables, only with 275 pages!
A cursory look at what I suspect is your GitHub profile reveals you could stand to learn something about good variable naming.
Her research focuses on the cognitive processes involved in learning programming and teaching it effectively, which means her audience is likely new/novice programmers. And it's not like one of the oldest jokes about programming doesn't point out how difficult naming things is, which is a side effect of how difficult abstraction can be.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#18The most important skills i wish someone had taught me when i was a young developer was how to interact with people in all areas of the organization, and how to deal with the politics. I was (as a young person), strongly against really wanting to know about these aspects, and instead wanted to be purely technical, but in the end that will mean more for your career than anything else, unfortunately.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#19this guy wrote a book that will teach you how to name variables, only with 275 pages!
I could probably fill 275 pages of my team bike shedding on variable names, so that seems reasonable.
Heh, I get similar bitching from my team on this, but programming is basically the art of defining a structured language around a given domain. Naming is far less the bike shed and much more the assembly of bricks that build the nuke plant; the individual notes that make up the final composition, if you will.
Re: The Programmer's Brain
#20Interesting that it specifies "speed reading". I think speed reading for code is actually an anti pattern since it is encouraging your biases and guesses instead of actually reading the damn output. If you ever wondered how people ended up programming stochastically and just making random changes I'd say speed reading is part of it
Given that her research is heavily focused on how people learn how to program, I can't imagine that any recommendations she might have regarding speed reading code would not be informed by her research.