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Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

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Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#31

Post by AnyTimeTraveler »

Is that why I find embedded programming the most fun?

I have been diagnosed with ADHD and had a really bad score on working memory. With embedded programming, there are usually few to no libraries and all I have to do is write certain values into certain hardware register addresses to get stuff done. All the relevant information is always on my screens, allowing my working memory to be occupied only by the problem or task I am working on.

I also find myself building everything in little modules that have interfaces that make it hard to misuse them, because I WILL forget how to use them and just let my IDE remind me of what functions a module has.

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#32

Post by smittywerben »

I just switched back to "never combine" on my Windows 10 taskbar after a lawyer complained on Reddit about this feature being removed in Windows 11. Said he has like 15 word or pdf files open at a time. He can see the title of all of them without navigation. I know that feeling.

Never combine seems nicer than navigating a stack of 20 browser windows (the browser icon) on my stack of 20 programs on the taskbar that I have to swing my mouse pointer around like a neanderthal just to look for where I need to swing it to next.

If it's a browser specifically, I have to look for the right tab of the 20 non-merged tabs too. That's 3 neanderthal grunts with the mouse to find where I was 15 min ago.

Idea: Why not stack the browser tabs too so it's all in one place.

When the windows aren't combined, I like that I notice when the taskbar starts looking like sardines. Otherwise I don't notice. Hours later, I have 40 browser windows open when my computer chugs upon clicking the browser icon. I don't realize until it's too late because I use alt-tab most of the time.

I think UI design is getting worse in almost every way and this is just a symptom of it.

Wayland brought back some interest in window managers[1]. On Windows, holding Windows key + arrow keys to snap windows is one of my favorite features. They stole that idea from the tiling managers. It's useful! I'm surprised Microsoft didn't remove it in Windows 11 to make their UI all floaty like a Mac.

On any Apple device, I have to drag my aging neanderthal hand over a touchpad with the delicacy of a butterfly to go "warp speed" between two windows.

Anyways thanks for reading my impromptu ted talk rambling on navigating the electric box under cognitive load.

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/wayland#Compositors

edit: clarity + format

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#33

Post by SkyPuncher »

swader999 wrote: post #11

So a low frills just the code IDE is better for ADHD. Wonder if single monitor and even single code pane at a time also boosts an ADHD brains productivity. Suspect it does. Another aspect of focus is fixation on a specific physical space with lowered blink rate. As soon as you move your eyes away or blink it lowers your concentration. The text outside of this cone of sight is less sharp. It's like a hunter that finds…

I typically find I do better with a single screen when I’m able to work entirely within an IDE.

Once I need to visually see what I’m building or reference documents, it's helpful to have to visually referenceable.

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#34

Post by bloopernova »

I have ADD and I'm struggling to write a more complex Python app right now. I'm hating myself for not being able to easily skip around the code as it gets more complex with more classes and methods. So this is very apropos for me.

Thing is, I can skip around Terraform much more easily (in my normal DevOps role). I'm wondering if Python whitespace isn't "right" for me somehow. EDIT: I'm definitely more used to Terraform, but I can read and navigate nodejs far more easily than Python, it's weird. I also don't want to come across as blaming Python for this, certainly it's incredibly effective for a huge number of people!

My next step is to try to break out the classes into their own files or something like that.

I don't suppose anyone has any tips on managing Python scripts? I doubt this is even 2,000 lines yet :(

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#35

Post by vidarh »

water9 wrote: post #15
rahen wrote: post #10

This reminds me of how Rob Pike mentioned his dislike for syntax coloring as extra cognitive load, which seems odd in regards to current IDEs filled with information and stimuli. With LLMs now directly interfaced to IDEs, it is likely that any obstacle will trigger a need for immediate AI powered dopamine reward. I wonder how programmers brains are going to rewire in this regard, even for those not subject to ADHD, b…

IMO syntax coloring lessens the cognitive load. What is "high level code". You are telling a machine what to do and to do it as fast as possible. Can you still make money telling a machine what to do but not as fast, depends but most likely. We code to ultimately make money in one form or another. Whether you keep that money or put it towards altruistic causes is independent of the shared commonality.

I have to agree. Syntax highlighting lets me recognise patterns in code without having to read it, and I actively avoid reading details I don't need.

(To me that is also what annoy me about IDE's - I want to focus on the shape of the code, not other stuff. When I focus on code, I want that code to be all that exists in my mind at that time; but I suspect whether or not you like IDE's is orthogonal to how you like your code presented)

But I also feel like there is an interesting range within developers from those of us who pattern match skim and "zoom" in on details to those developers who read code in detail, and I'm not sure those of us on different sides of that spectrum see perceptual load the same way.

On one end you find people like me who are purist about syntax and presentation because we're extremely conscious about avoiding having to read everything. E.g. I remember code by overall visual shape, and I can hold a lot of that in my head at once, but I don't remember what it says. I know where to find things rapidly, but not the details. I never try to remember the details.

On the other extreme you find people with like their code to look like K or J "line noise" or mathematical notation because it's short and compact which helps when they're deciphering the code symbol by symbol.

To me, the latter is the height of perceptual load, because I can't just look at it and have a rough idea what it might do, but I understand that some instead see it as stripping away extraneous details.

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#36

Post by giantg2 »

dkh wrote: post #16

As an engineer for 10+ years with pretty severe ADHD (unmedicated, I cannot usually even read more than a few pages of a book before either losing focus or feeling drained) I have always been aware of how much my performance fluctuates based on the cognitive load of dealing with the code I am currently working with, and how it is displayed. I half-jokingly tend to describe it to people as having a "small brain buffer…

"and why I almost exclusively join small/new teams who don't yet have an enormous codebase that I'll have to wrap my head around."

How do you find these teams? In my 11 years, I don't think I've ever found myself on a greenfield project.

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#37

Post by vidarh »

McPepper wrote: post #2

From my own personal experience, it would explain why when I use window managers like i3wm and Yabai versus regular desktop that I am more effective and efficient. Somehow window managers just fits perfectly like glove for my brain. I don't get that cognitive load overhead when I have million different tabs and windows and programs and notes just splattered in a single screen. It's all neatly hidden away until I need…

I currently is bspwm on my personal laptop, and work on a Mac, and it was a brutal change to go back to a non-tiled wm at work (I tried without as an experiment to see how I'd feel about it when I first got the new work machine - the jury is in: It's absolutely awful; Yabai is heaven in comparison).

As far back as the 1980's when I was using an Amiga, I'd always effectively work full screen or with carefully tiled layouts if I couldn't...

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#38

Post by AnyTimeTraveler »

extasia wrote: post #18
water9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO syntax coloring lessens the cognitive load. What is "high level code". You are telling a machine what to do and to do it as fast as possible. Can you still make money telling a machine what to do but not as fast, depends but most likely. We code to ultimately make money in one form or another. Whether you keep that money or put it towards altruistic causes is independent of the shared commonality.

We should organise a study of our own: does syntax highlighting help or hinder and does the answer change based on your level of ADHD traits. Could be quite interesting!

I have been diagnosed with ADHD and got an especially bad score for working memory.

I find myself tired out really quickly by a lack of syntax highlighting.

With syntax highlighting, I feel like I am not really reading the code anymore, but instead just registering the patterns and parsing the color tokens.

I think the most important aspect for me, is that I don't spend time reading where a token starts and ends. Ex.: If I wanna check the function name, I just have to read the only yellow thing in around this area.

I can register the tokens on a whole page in seconds, if the code isn't too dense. I just tried the same with syntax highlighting disabled and would say that I took about twice as long to parse the entire page. (I used a different, but similar file from a microcontroller HAL)

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#39

Post by dkh »

rightbyte wrote: post #27
dkh wrote: post #16

As an engineer for 10+ years with pretty severe ADHD (unmedicated, I cannot usually even read more than a few pages of a book before either losing focus or feeling drained) I have always been aware of how much my performance fluctuates based on the cognitive load of dealing with the code I am currently working with, and how it is displayed. I half-jokingly tend to describe it to people as having a "small brain buffer…

> flounder when debugging if I feel unable to visually see or mentally hold the entire problem in my head at once Surely this is a general problem and not specific to programmers with ADD? Or do you mean you are relatively worse at "needle sting debugging"? You second paragraph is just sane things in general. I wish your mindset was more common among my colleagues ...

Relative to my peers I have often found myself to have lower tolerances in these areas. It sometimes surprised people when I felt something was complex (to work with, not conceptually) when they did not, or at the length of time it could sometimes take me to fix something that involved digging through a lot of code.

Re: Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms

#40

Post by elcritch »

Netcob wrote: post #26
dkh wrote: post #16

As an engineer for 10+ years with pretty severe ADHD (unmedicated, I cannot usually even read more than a few pages of a book before either losing focus or feeling drained) I have always been aware of how much my performance fluctuates based on the cognitive load of dealing with the code I am currently working with, and how it is displayed. I half-jokingly tend to describe it to people as having a "small brain buffer…

Same here. I try to see the bright side, where I am basically forced to write "clean" code because anything else just doesn't fit my buffer. And I feel a kinship with current LLMs with small context sizes.

It's funny, my input buffer may be small and it's a large mental drain to read busy code (ADHD con), however once I grasp how a code base works it's just there (ADHD pro).

It makes me wonder if it's related to the hunter-gatherer origin hypothesis. In that scenario covering large tracks of land was beneficial and that ability can be used to mentally map code. The flop side this also leads to distractibility and boredom paying attention to monotonous details.

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