Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by jstarfish » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 4:55 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #86

bloopernova wrote: post #34

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 Terrafo…

As someone on more or less the maximum dose of adderall, here are the commandments as I have been able to divine (for myself): - Thou shalt use a language server. Esp. goto-definition and find-refs, as they shall light your path through third party libs. - Thou shalt refactor like a crazy person. No component should have less than 3 or more than 5 significant members. A concise codebase makes for a calm mind. - Thou…

Given the mention of great destroyer This-Is-Too-Complex-So-Let's-Rewrite-The-Whole-Thing, you seem like you know what you're talking about, but I can't comprehend the actual lesson you're trying to impart.

Would you kindly ELI5?

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

#132

Post by npunt » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #106

npunt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea of a 'small brain buffer' is why I love writing small atomic notes in wikis [1]. It lets me break problems down into simple pieces that I can later assemble upward in abstraction, rather than try to hold complex ideas in my head and compile them together in one big document. The buffer waxes and wanes, and I need to be able to adapt my writing process so I'm productive no matter where it is at the moment. […

I've been doing this too in Obsidian and really like it. Notes can be as short or long as feels right. If they need to grow they can grow, sometimes they get split into sub notes. I have notes with titles like "Cardboard furniture", "Staging patch changes in VSCode", and "Hilbert Transform". Some are one or two sentences, some are more like essays with subheadings. Small notes tend to have one or two links to other n…

Yep, Obsidian is the best! Two patterns I use a lot to help with this small brain buffer problem are collections & streams.

Collections (sometimes called 'Maps of Content') are sets of internal & external links or resources around a particular topic, e.g. 'Self Deception', 'Creativity', 'Air Quality', etc. The page names represent the topic so they're easy to name, and if I can't find a page I go to these first before search.

Streams are pages with date headers that contain small notes around a broad topic. For instance, 'Passing Thoughts' are random ideas, 'Story Prompts' are ideas for stories, and 'Inbox' are links to read and any notes I have on them. Streams do three things for me:

1. I don't know how big an idea is until I write it, and this stream pattern lets me optionally break ideas off into their own pages if they get to a certain level of size/complexity.

2. I can quickly capture without having to create a new page, since I'm at ~2000 now and each subsequent page makes search less effective.

3. I can avoid the challenge of naming pages, which is often harder than it seems. For instance, I've taken to naming certain pages like Andy M's evergreen notes style of declarative claims/statements, like 'Recognizing our influences empowers our creativity', 'The curiosity driving information addiction may be due to a sense of deprivation', and 'Good ideas deserve good stewards'. To do this clearly, concisely, and scoped correctly is its own challenge and worth the time investment because it really lets me build on strong foundations, and it prevents similar pages from proliferating in search by being easy to find.

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

#133

Post by MSFT_Edging » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

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…

I relate to this, one reason I avoid IDEs is the "window" where you can actually see code is so limited. It feels like coding through a paper towel tube.

I'll make my life way harder in order to optimize the view of the code.

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

#134

Post by smolder » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #54

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…

> unmedicated, I cannot usually even read more than a few pages of a book before either losing focus or feeling drained Tangent: ADHD is strange. I have it too, and yet when it comes to reading my symptoms appear to be the exact opposite (when I was younger I could not stop reading books until I finished them, even if I ended up skipping an entire night of sleep for it). I wouldn't be surprised if in the next decades…

I have both things going on, you might say. When I first settle down with a book or long form reading after not having done it a while, it's a considerable effort to focus. Typically at some point after forcing myself back to the text and rereading paragraphs many times I will get immersed in the text. Focus improves and reading speeds up, and for a book I might binge-read it in a couple days, with it occupying my thoughts even when I put it down.

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

#135

Post by sodapopcan » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

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…

> why I try to keep functions/modules as simple as possible and ideally not longer in length than I can see on my screen at once (when possible)

This is the paradox of "readable" code. Each person has a different definition of it. I also prefer to write as dumb code as possible (well, these days I do, I of course tried to be extra clever in my earlier days). But for me it's the jumping around that makes me lose focus. My limit is about 3-4 jumps. This is not to say I write long meandering functions, but I personally couldn't imagine a codebase I'd be happy working in that is made up of modules that fit on a screen. Maybe it's possible! But the projects I've worked on that have a linter rule of "100 lines per file" or whatever end up being these rabbit holes. It's so hard to come up with code design guidelines everyone can agree on.

As a side note, I despise things like imports and aliases. I'd prefer that when I do jump to a function, I can read it without having to check if anything is imported or not. I always opt for fully qualified function calls, regardless of how many characters it is.

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

#136

Post by jstarfish » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #122

Even "lite" editors like VSCode, NP++, Sublime Text, etc have become distracting for me. Every time I fire one of these things up, my mental state is eliminated by being forced to dismiss some "hey we got a new version for you :D:D:D" bullshit modal. To whomever is responsible for adding these to apps: please stop. No one is enjoying your shenanigans. It is a text editor . Empathize with the user: People with far les…

The corollary is enabling auto-update to get rid of the box, only to find UI features added or rearranged every time you try to start working.

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

#137

Post by badtuple » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

digdugdirk wrote: post #128

brucificus wrote: post #110

I had something flickering in my IDE the other day while I was trying to learn my way around a large monolithic codebase at a new job. I couldn't executive function well enough to stop/hide the flickering, and I couldn't ignore it. I eventually had a meltdown and left the room (wfh, thankfully). It took me hours to recover. Having a tidy, visually "muted" workspace - both in a literal sense (the IDE) as well as a con…

This hits home. Especially the "hours to recover" part. I never quite appreciate how long it takes to right the ship after a day like that. Do you have any tips for how you structure your digital workspace? Favourite tools or methods to help support your executive functioning?

The only thing that works for me is separating things into very distinct "realms" and only having one realm open at a time. No exceptions.

For example one realm is for communication. Slack, Browser, Email, and Calendar can be open. Nothing is really a distraction from anything else here. I'm just being "at work" and communicating in this mode.

Another is for coding. Literally the only things open are vim and a terminal. NO browser and NO Slack. If I need documentation then I didn't design well enough, and design is it's own realm. I should know the libraries I'm using, and anything else is easily handled by vim's autocomplete/intellisense or navigating to the code.

The other two explicit realms are Writing and Design/Planning. There are more adhoc ones, but I really try to avoid adhoc-ness.

Switching realms is a hassle and requires super deliberate action. This means I can't just randomly switch between tabs and code and Slack and email and social media and just...kinda looking at things? That was my main problem. It was too easy to "move" and so I could never stop moving and somehow the entire day was gone. At no point was I goofing off, but my day just disappeared.

The only issue is that work people really really want my dot to be green on Slack at all times. They even give me the room to be on my own, but literally just having Slack open is a weird attention drain and I don't really know how to convey that. This leads to me getting most of my work done after hours and working way too long :/

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

#138

Post by formulathree » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

dagmx wrote: post #103

formulathree wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

modern python development is used in conjunction with an external type checker. That's what I meant. My mistake for not being clear. Obviously the python interpreter itself does not do any type checks. It's sort if like how modern development with javascript is used with an external compiler of another language (typescript) that compiles a typed language into one without types.

Yeah but my rebuttal is that even with type hints and adequate type checking, that Python is too dynamic to trust consistent behaviour. An object can conform to a type in name only, but that’s not enough to tell you what methods or attributes exist on it at any given time.

monkey patching is rarely done.

In practice, your rebuttal almost never occurs. I believe these type checkers can detect monkey patching and trigger a type error or warning.

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

#139

Post by sirsuki » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

Meanwhile, Vim and Emacs users be like “what is going on over there?”

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

#140

Post by jtr1 » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #106

npunt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea of a 'small brain buffer' is why I love writing small atomic notes in wikis [1]. It lets me break problems down into simple pieces that I can later assemble upward in abstraction, rather than try to hold complex ideas in my head and compile them together in one big document. The buffer waxes and wanes, and I need to be able to adapt my writing process so I'm productive no matter where it is at the moment. […

I've been doing this too in Obsidian and really like it. Notes can be as short or long as feels right. If they need to grow they can grow, sometimes they get split into sub notes. I have notes with titles like "Cardboard furniture", "Staging patch changes in VSCode", and "Hilbert Transform". Some are one or two sentences, some are more like essays with subheadings. Small notes tend to have one or two links to other n…

How are you aggregating in Obsidian? I feel like I haven't cracked the code on this one