A similar design principle is called “APIs should be deep, not wide”:
https://unterwaditzer.net/2024/api-wrappers.html
Cognitive load is what matters
141–150 of 552 posts
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#142This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it.
It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and eventually they'll lose the ability to write code on their own.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#143This article reminds me of my early days at Microsoft. I spent 8 years in the Developer Division (DevDiv). Microsoft had three personas for software engineers that were eventually retired for a much more complex persona framework called people in context (the irony in relation to this article isn’t lost on me). But those original personas still stick with me and have been incredibly valuable in my career to understan…
Clearly they were missing Amanda, the engineer who's had to review others' terrible code (and her own) for 20 years, and has learned the hard way to keep it simple. She knows she's writing code mostly for people to read, not computers. Give me a small team of Amandas any day.
You clearly missed the entire message of the entire "three kinds of developers" sort of shit if you think that a fourth type that's perfect is what's missing from it.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#144This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it. It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and…
>AI can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then
AI can fix it
I'm not defending or encouraging AI, just saying that argument doesn't work
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#145This article reminds me of my early days at Microsoft. I spent 8 years in the Developer Division (DevDiv). Microsoft had three personas for software engineers that were eventually retired for a much more complex persona framework called people in context (the irony in relation to this article isn’t lost on me). But those original personas still stick with me and have been incredibly valuable in my career to understan…
> three personas for software engineers The kind of psycho-bullshit that we should stay away from, and wouldn't happen if we respected each other. Coming from Microsoft is not surprising though.
Stereotyping people is good.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#146This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it. It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and…
> AI can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then AI can fix it I'm not defending or encouraging AI, just saying that argument doesn't work
I'm talking about cases where even AI can't fix it. I've heard of a lot of stories where people vibe code their applications to 80% and then get stuck in a loop where AI is unable to solve their problems.
It's been well documented that LLMs collapse after a certain complexity level.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#147This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it. It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and…
> AI can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then AI can fix it I'm not defending or encouraging AI, just saying that argument doesn't work
[dead]
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#148This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it. It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and…
Or maybe it will actually increase the quality of software engineering because it will free up the cognitive load from thinking of the low level design to higher level architecture.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't refactoring the if soup into an algorithmically elegant solution what the Einstein does ?
Elegant is usually the opposite of maintainable. Reading elegant code is like reading a book of riddles (which is one of the reasons we enjoy it.)
True, but we shouldn't understate how beneficial elegant solutions can be in the appropriate setting. Sometimes you read code that gives you a new and memorable way to think about a certain kind of problem.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> three personas for software engineers The kind of psycho-bullshit that we should stay away from, and wouldn't happen if we respected each other. Coming from Microsoft is not surprising though.
For my frame of reference, do you think the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are psycho-bullshit, too? Because I had characterized personas as a very similar "of course it's a generalization" and OP even said themselves "every engineer is a mix" but if you're coming from stance that bucketing people is disrespectful, then your perspective on MBTI would help me digest your stance
I'll leave it to others to make the argument for why Jungian psychology (and by extension, MBTI) is/isn't bullshit.
But since nobody has mentioned the alternative yet, the framework used by anyone in any scientific capacity is the Big Five: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
The link between programming and conscientiousness seems fairly straightforward. To fully translate Mort/Elvis/Einstein into some kind of OCEAN vector would take a little more effort.