Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cognitive load is what matters

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 552 posts

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#101

Post by reikonomusha »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #68
edtechdev wrote: post #46

Cognitive load isn't a valid or useful concept: https://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/cognitive-load-th... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2024.2... There are separate contexts involved here: the coder, the compiler, the runtime, a person trying to understand the code (context of this article), etc. What's better for one context may not be better for another, and programming languages favor…

The linked articles seem to primarily criticize three things about connotative load theory; - Difficult to measure and therefore a hard or impossible to empirically study. (a bad scientific theory) - Its application to education and learning theory which where a lot of other techniques are more proven. - The idea that it's a primary mechanism of human learning, which has had a-lot of research showing otherwise. Thoug…

I think the criticism is relevant because TFA isn't the first to exercise the term "cognitive load" in the context of computing. It's a term thrown around quite often, so we should cross reference its alleged meaning to literature.

I myself find it to be a term that's effectively used as a thought-terminating cliche, sometimes as a way to defend a critic's preferred coding style and organization.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#102

Post by riedel »

Speaking only of intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load oversimplifies things. This works for tasks of pilots (see e.g. NASATLX scores).

However, if new information that needs to be learned is in the game there is also germane cognitive load [0]. It is a nice theory, however, practically there is unfortunately no easy way to separate them and look at them totally independently.

[0] https://mcdreeamiemusings.com/blog/2019/10/15/the-good-the-b...

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#103

Post by mdaniel »

lxe wrote: post #27

Introducing intermediate variables is what I call "indirection". You're adding another step to someone reading the code. Let's take a recipe: Ingredients: large bowl 2 eggs 200 grams sugar 500 grams flour 1/2 tsp soda Steps: Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add sugar and whisk. Sift the flower. Add the soda. When following the instruction, you have to always refer back to the ingredients list and search for the quantity,…

This probably isn't entirely what you meant, but people who do this code smell drive me starkraving mad

  shipToAddress(getShippingAddress(getStreet()),calculateShipping(getShippingAddress(getStreet())))
because as soon as one needs to update the mechanism for getting the shipping address, congratulations, you're updating it everywhere -- or not, nothing matters in this timeline

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#104

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

lxe wrote: post #27

Introducing intermediate variables is what I call "indirection". You're adding another step to someone reading the code. Let's take a recipe: Ingredients: large bowl 2 eggs 200 grams sugar 500 grams flour 1/2 tsp soda Steps: Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add sugar and whisk. Sift the flower. Add the soda. When following the instruction, you have to always refer back to the ingredients list and search for the quantity,…

your example makes me question how much you bake.

The instructions are simple to remember, the ingredient quantities are not. Once i have read the recipe, i have a clear idea what i need to do. But i may need to look up the quantities. Looking for those in a block of text is a waste of time and error prone. Having a recipe formatted like the 2nd example is only useful for a someone inexperienced with baking.

Its also difficult to buy or bring out the ingredients if they're hidden in text. Or know if i can bake something based on what i have or not.

If you've baked an really old recipe from a book, you may find instructions like "Mix the ingredients, put in a pan, bake until brown on high heat", with a list of quantities and not even a picture to know what it is you're baking. An experienced baker will know the right order and tools, and how their oven behaves, so it's not written out at all.

If i look for recipes online, seeing the instructions written like you have makes me reluctant to trust the author, and also makes me annoyed when trying to follow or plan out the process.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#105

Post by [deleted] »

layer8 wrote: post #96

> Then QA engineers come into play: "Hey, I got 403 status, is that expired token or not enough access?" To be fair, the HTTP status line allows for arbitrary informational text, so something like “HTTP/1.1 401 JWT token expired” would be perfectly allowable.

[deleted]

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#106

Post by tempodox »

Waterluvian wrote: post #86
noen wrote: post #18

This 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…

Yeah… it’s like picking three points in an n-dimensional matrix. It is sufficient for creating an illusion of being scientific about it.

Indeed. And besides that, all three are really bad parodies. Mort is the only one where the product actually works, because for him that’s an explicit goal. With the other two, a working product is mere coincidence.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#107

Post by jadbox »

darkstarsys wrote: post #69
noen wrote: post #18

This 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.

Mort, Elvis, Einstein, Amanda does seem to fit well with my experience. While people are a mix, generally I think its fair that there is a primary focus/mode that fits on career goals.

- Mort wants to climb the business ladder.

- Elvis wants earned social status.

- Einstein wants legacy with unique contributions.

- Amanda just wants group cohesion and minimizing future unpredictability.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#109

Post by roblh »

noen wrote: post #18

This 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…

That’s super interesting. What was the ideal ratio, back then. Is it still the same now? Or I guess maybe it depends on the specific role and could be different in each. What exactly do you find valuable about thinking in these terms?

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#110

Post by rapind »

noen wrote: post #18

This 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…

Mort is the pragmatist, Einstein is the perfectionist, and Elvis is... let's be honest, Elvis is basically cancer to a project. I guess maybe a small dose of Elvis can help motivate?

I see the ideal as a combination of Mort and Einstein that want to keep it simple enough that it can be delivered (less abstraction, distilled requirements) while ensuring the code is sufficiently correct (not necessarily "elegant" mind you) that maintenance and support won't be a total nightmare.

IMO, seek out Morts and give them long term ownership of the project so they get a little Einstein-y when they realize they need to support that "pile of if statements".

As an aside, I'm finding coding agents to be a bit too much Mort at times (YOLO), when I'd prefer they were more Einstein. I'd rather be the Mort myself to keep it on track.

Post reply on HN