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Cognitive load is what matters

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Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#271

Post by exclipy »

zakirullin wrote: post #267
exclipy wrote: post #264

This 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.

Oh! I was surprised you didn't link or mention the book

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#272

Post by zakirullin »

roadbuster wrote: post #266
zakirullin wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I did it a few times :) He knows about the article, we talked about it.

Lucky to have an opportunity to chat with him! Did he have any specific feedback on your essay?

There's some: https://groups.google.com/g/software-design-book/c/c_CNaDTJt...

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#273

Post by zakirullin »

exclipy wrote: post #271
zakirullin wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh! I was surprised you didn't link or mention the book

It is mentioned/quoted in Deep Modules section: https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load?tab=readme-ov-f...

Maybe I should make it more visible.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#274

Post by Izkata »

packetlost wrote: post #258
pessimizer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Your definition of elegant is definitely different from mine lol

Yeah, I'd define elegant as something like "unexpectedly simple and easy to understand", relative to the simple approach to the problem at hand.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#275

Post by alphazard »

The bit about "smart developer quirks" looks suspiciously like the author only understands code that they have written, or is in a specific style that they recognize. That's not the biggest driver behind cognitive load.

Reducing cognitive load comes from the code that you don't have to read. Boundaries between components with strong guarantees let you reason about a large amount of code without ever reading it. Making a change (which the article uses as a benchmark) is done in terms of these clear APIs instead of with all the degrees of freedom available in the codebase.

If you are using small crisp API boundaries to break up the system, "smart developer quirks" don't really matter very much. They are visible in the volume, but not in the surface area.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#276

Post by hinkley »

Cognitive load may be the dominant form of stress but it is not the only one. I feel like this is very close to correct but subtlety and critically broken.

In particular, when the shit hits the fan, your max cognitive load tanks. Something people who grumble at the amount of foolproofing I prefer often only discover in a crisis. Because they’re used to looking at something the way they look at it while sipping their second coffee of the day. Not when the servers are down and customers are calling angry.

You’ll note that we only see how the control room at NASA functions in movies and TV when there’s a massive crisis going on, or intrigue. Because the rest of the time it’s so fucking boring nobody would watch it.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#277

Post by hinkley »

alphazard wrote: post #275

The bit about "smart developer quirks" looks suspiciously like the author only understands code that they have written, or is in a specific style that they recognize. That's not the biggest driver behind cognitive load. Reducing cognitive load comes from the code that you don't have to read. Boundaries between components with strong guarantees let you reason about a large amount of code without ever reading it. Makin…

I learned pretty early on that people get really tired of optimization of code that is directly in the call stack they have to breakpoint in. Later on I clocked some of that as code smells pulling attention and analysis time during debug work.

But the trick I found is that if you can extract a function for only the part of the code you’re optimizing/improving, and then make your change in a single commit, two things happen. One, it’s off the code path, so out of site, out of mind. Two, people are more forgiving of code changes they don’t like but can roll back by reverting a single commit. That breaks down a bit with PRs, since they tend to think of the code as a single commit. But the crisp boundaries still matter a lot.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#278

Post by hinkley »

exclipy wrote: post #264

This 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.

It’s a pain in the ass to source a copy of this book without giving Jeff Bezos all the money. If anyone reading this thread knows John, could you bring this to his attention?

I even tried calling the bookstore on his campus and they said try back at the beginning of a semester, they didn’t have any copies.

My local book store could not source me a copy, and neither IIRC could Powell’s.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#279

Post by zkmon »

Children were always told to cram as much as possible into their memory. It was even claimed that, more you put into memory, you mind works better.

Not quite. Human mind has evolved to interpret the sensory data collected by senses, and cause necessary action. Some of that interpretation uses memory to correlate the perceived data with the memory data. That's pretty much it.

Overloading the human memory with tons of data which is not related to the context in which the person lives, can cause negative effects. I suspect it can also cause faster aging. New experiences, new information is like scales on a tree trunk. As you accumulate more of it, you age more.

Re: Cognitive load is what matters

#280

Post by srcreigh »

hinkley wrote: post #277
alphazard wrote: post #275

The bit about "smart developer quirks" looks suspiciously like the author only understands code that they have written, or is in a specific style that they recognize. That's not the biggest driver behind cognitive load. Reducing cognitive load comes from the code that you don't have to read. Boundaries between components with strong guarantees let you reason about a large amount of code without ever reading it. Makin…

I learned pretty early on that people get really tired of optimization of code that is directly in the call stack they have to breakpoint in. Later on I clocked some of that as code smells pulling attention and analysis time during debug work. But the trick I found is that if you can extract a function for only the part of the code you’re optimizing/improving, and then make your change in a single commit, two things…

What do you mean about “people get really tired of optimization of code that is directly in the call stack they have to breakpoint in”? What’s the context where everybody else is using breakpoints?
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