A similar design principle is called “APIs should be deep, not wide”: https://unterwaditzer.net/2024/api-wrappers.html
Thanks! I might link it to the article.
Cognitive load is what matters
261–270 of 552 posts
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#262He should cite John Ousterhout, IMO. He's clearly influenced by Ousterhout's (excellent) work.
And I did it a few times :) He knows about the article, we talked about it.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#263While I support the goal of article, reducing extraneous cognitive load, I think some of the comments, and the article are missing a key point about cognitive load — it depends on the existing mental model the reader/author/developer has about the whole thing. There is no universal truth to reducing cognitive load like reducing abstractions / not relying on frameworks. Reducing cognitive load doesn't happen in a vacu…
There's a chapter about mental models: https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load?tab=readme-ov-f...
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#264This was my main takeaway from A Philosophy Of Software Design by John Ousterhout. It is the best book on this subject and I recommend it to every software developer.
Basically, you should aim to minimise complexity in software design, but importantly, complexity is defined as "how difficult is it to make changes to it". "How difficult" is largely determined by the amount of cognitive load necessary to understand it.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#265Love it. Make code accessibility a first-class citizen. Turn the rule books and their principles into guidelines . A smart coder knows to follow rules. A master knows code is meant to be read and develops contextual awareness for when and why to break a rule, or augment it, as the case may be. So, reintroduce judgment and critical thinking in your coding practice. Develop an intuitive feel for the cognitive costs and…
Thanks a lot! You've nailed it :)
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#266Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#267This was my main takeaway from A Philosophy Of Software Design by John Ousterhout. It is the best book on this subject and I recommend it to every software developer. Basically, you should aim to minimise complexity in software design, but importantly, complexity is defined as "how difficult is it to make changes to it". "How difficult" is largely determined by the amount of cognitive load necessary to understand it.
That's best book on the topic! The article was inspired by this exact book. And John is a very good person, we discussed a thing or two about the article.
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#268[dead]
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#269I’m not reading code anymore, cursor does
Re: Cognitive load is what matters
#270This was my main takeaway from A Philosophy Of Software Design by John Ousterhout. It is the best book on this subject and I recommend it to every software developer. Basically, you should aim to minimise complexity in software design, but importantly, complexity is defined as "how difficult is it to make changes to it". "How difficult" is largely determined by the amount of cognitive load necessary to understand it.
Which is why I consider DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) to be an anti-rule until an application is fairly well understood and multiple versions exist. DO repeat yourself, and do not create some smart version of what you think the problem is before you're attempting the 3rd version. Version 1 is how you figure out the problem space, version 2 is how you figure out your solution as a maintainable dynamic thing within a changing tech landscape, and version 3 is when DRY is look at for the first time for that application.