I am mildly disturbed by this HN thread that seems to suggest there is a large number of programmers who have so little directed high-level planning and short term memory that they need to constantly refer to what their code looked like five minutes ago news.ycombinator.com/item?id=261878
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This is me. I am constantly working around the limits of my attention span. But it makes me a lot more sensitive to, and skilled at, explicitly identifying tacit knowledge and behavioral aspects of programming (once I discover it) to close the gap between memory and action.
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Yeah I find type checking invaluable for my attention - like, it always remembers. I remember feeling super flummoxed and constantly confused when using dynamic types a few years ago… like I'd lost a 'sense'. :(
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I mean, it can also lead me to hyperfixating on a type tetris puzzle, so it's a double edged sword. But I care more about keeping my 'spot', I guess.
Type systems are great, but the way compilers serve information and design of error messages can be improved to help close that gap between cognition + muscle memory + higher-order thinking skills.
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Yeah, absolutely agree! Need to do more work on that. And better editors and language interfaces.
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