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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

#221

Post by still_grokking »

ck425 wrote: post #111
bippihippi1 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, naturally having experienced needing to context switch often (getting disctracted or multithreading or refreshing forgotten context), I have gotten good at it not by remebering more but by storing the context in an easily retrievable place. I keep tabs open, I print out stuff even when breakpoint debugging, and I reduce my cognitive load by default. I remember where to look to find the data, because…

People are shocked when they see how many tabs I have open. I just checked and I've 21 windows each with atleast 10 tabs, but the more frequently used one are 30+. But it really does help. I also group them by topic and when I need to focus I start a new window with the tabs for that particular task.

That's not much tabs…

I have alone in this window here 4682 tabs open.

How it comes? Well, I just don't close them until I have decided whether I want to bookmark them. After month with a browser sessions quite some tabs pile up. (When it gets out of hands I bookmark whole windows… So there remains at least the theoretical possibility that I sort this out later. Even that happens only rarely.)

Before someone asks: From the technical standpoint it's quite easy to have so many open tabs. All you need is Firefox, Tree-Style-Tabs, and tab auto discard ("sleep"). It fits than in under 2.5 GB RAM even (which is less than Chrome with even a few tabs).

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

#222

Post by thepostman0 »

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 one good thing about IDEs is their key bindings when they're like vim. Everything else sucks. I use vim with debuggers.

Nothing seems to have changed for the worse over decades.

It doesn't get in the way and seems to work the same everywhere.

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

#223

Post by solardev »

javajosh wrote: post #220
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…

I think it's time for you to roll up your sleeves and start modifying your editor, then. And if it's not modifiable enough, ditch it. I've been using IntelliJ for years (it's main thing is Java but it is also the best javascript/html editor, by far; the git UI is quirky but good once you get used to it). It's highly customizable such that you can banish anything you don't want to see. Features like "find anything" an…

As an IntelliJ user (and lover), it also gives you annoying update prompts basically every time I open it. There's always some plugin or another needing a reboot.

It has a lot of pros and cons compared to VSCode, but upgrade politeness isn't one of them. The frequent reindexing will often take you out of the flow too. It's very easy to move faster than IntelliJ can keep up with, especially on a slower computer.

And in terms of perceptual load, its interface is way more cluttered than VSCode, with multiple overlapping panels that each have several modes and tabs they can be in, and an unclear closing hierarchy that will often close some but not all of them (like shift-esc won't work reliably).

Some workarounds:

* Distraction-free mode reduces the noise: https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/guide/tips/distraction-free-m....

* Jetbrains is also working on a whole IDE rewrite to a cleaner UI: https://www.jetbrains.com/fleet/

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

#224

Post by javajosh »

solardev wrote: post #223
javajosh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's time for you to roll up your sleeves and start modifying your editor, then. And if it's not modifiable enough, ditch it. I've been using IntelliJ for years (it's main thing is Java but it is also the best javascript/html editor, by far; the git UI is quirky but good once you get used to it). It's highly customizable such that you can banish anything you don't want to see. Features like "find anything" an…

As an IntelliJ user (and lover), it also gives you annoying update prompts basically every time I open it. There's always some plugin or another needing a reboot. It has a lot of pros and cons compared to VSCode, but upgrade politeness isn't one of them. The frequent reindexing will often take you out of the flow too. It's very easy to move faster than IntelliJ can keep up with, especially on a slower computer. And i…

>multiple overlapping panels that each have several modes and tabs they can be in, and an unclear closing hierarchy that will often close some but not all of them (like shift-esc won't work reliably)

Yes, this is the default. But it's pretty easy to change. Most of my windows are on hotkeys and mostly unpinned so they get out of the way. Some are pinned, so to close you hit the hot key again. For example, project view is ctrl 1 (or option 1 on mac) and I often close it - the highest source of not-useful visual clutter, imho. terminal is ctrl 2, which simulates some nice early linux utilties that would slide a terminal on and off the screen. The same set up for the run/debug tabs, database tabs, and so on. 90% of the time I'm just looking at the editor and a terminal. The way God intended.

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

#225

Post by solardev »

myself248 wrote: post #187
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…

There is no earthly reason why a text editor should have network access in the first place. Can you just block that?

Built-in git, Github PRs & comments, documentation lookups, database browsers, copilot, opening preview browsers, networked Docker, remote coding, CI/CD pipelines... this is talking about IDEs after all, not just a basic text editor

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

#227

Post by solardev »

xmcqdpt2 wrote: post #48
123pie123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whoever created the UI/ UX in MS Teams needs a good talking to MS Teams overloads my brain through very bad design

I hate Teams and wish so much there was a better client for it. Why does is the "teams" pane different from the individual chats pane ??? Do I just have to deal with the sluggish UI switch every time I want to chat with my team? do I not understand how it works or something?

No, it's just bad. Microsoft rushed it to market so Zoom wouldn't eat them alive. Then they just stopped caring...

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

#228

Post by solardev »

javajosh wrote: post #224
solardev wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an IntelliJ user (and lover), it also gives you annoying update prompts basically every time I open it. There's always some plugin or another needing a reboot. It has a lot of pros and cons compared to VSCode, but upgrade politeness isn't one of them. The frequent reindexing will often take you out of the flow too. It's very easy to move faster than IntelliJ can keep up with, especially on a slower computer. And i…

>multiple overlapping panels that each have several modes and tabs they can be in, and an unclear closing hierarchy that will often close some but not all of them (like shift-esc won't work reliably) Yes, this is the default. But it's pretty easy to change. Most of my windows are on hotkeys and mostly unpinned so they get out of the way. Some are pinned, so to close you hit the hot key again. For example, project vie…

It kinda depends which stack you work in, too. I think the JS/PHP/Web side of things tend to be a second-class citizen in IntelliJ especially (vs Java), but also in WebStorm. Things like npm scripts and Docker are first-class citizens in VScode but take multiple clicks to discover in IntelliJ, and even then it shares a panel with other functions, and some things end up in the "Run" tab while others end up in a separate npm panel while others launch their own sub-terminal... it's really easy to quickly lose track of them, sadly :(

It's not so much that I want an individual hotkey for each window, but a UI tailored for the 90% of my time (coding, dev server/docker status, npm scripts). The debugger is another big one that I wish had its own UI instead of just being mixed into the bottom pane with all the terminals from last week, etc.

I'm really hopeful that Fleet can drastically simplify all this, while still keeping the powerful indexing, diffing, and refactoring (the three main reasons I stick to Jetbrains instead of VScode)

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

#229

Post by _gmax0 »

VHRanger wrote: post #51
rightbyte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ...

ADHD is a quantitative disorder, not qualitative. To some extent, everyone gets mild versions of ADHD symptoms, especially if tired/bad nutrition/no exercise, etc. ADHD is when these symptoms harm quality of life significantly across many domains and since you were prepubescent (it's a brain malformation, not a series of bad habits)

And to think psychiatrists are bestowed with the authority to mass-prescribe amphetamines upon accurately deducing the presence of ADHD from brief patient self-evaluations is eyebrow raising.

Looking forward to when a portable EEG monitors are available at an affordable price.

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

#230

Post by sodapopcan »

Saturn5 wrote: post #216
ziml77 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not just the jumps but also overly long names. My ability to quickly scan the code is hindered by names that all jumble together because they aren't visually distinct enough. And when they read like a book, I'm going to have the same problems I have when reading books where I'm somehow reading all these words across the page but at the same time not actually processing any of it.

I have a colleague that loves to call functions things like ‘convert_object_type_from_mm_to_m’ and ‘convert_object_type_from_m_to_mm’ . It’s unscannable. They’re the same to me. He does not like my ‘meter_to_mm’ and ‘mm_to_meter’ because the abbreviations are inconsistent, no verb is used and he needs to go all the way to the typehint to know the input. We both have a point, but there is not really a clear middle gro…

Ya, that is ridiculous, honestly. While it's still all subjective, you gotta draw the line somewhere! I'm a stickler for consistency myself and would be ok with `meter_to_millimeter` but the `convert_object_type_from_` is pure nonsense. Like, assuming you're talking about a language with objects, what the heck else would you be converting?? EDIT: requiring verbs in function names is also overrated. It's one of those things that's usually a good idea, but if comes down to employing some taste to decide when it might not be. EDIT 2: I'm now upset for you for having to put up with that, lol.
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