Type systems are an accessibility tool for programming with ADHD.
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I’d be interested to learn more about this perspective. Would you like to elaborate?
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Many (most) people with ADHD have a reduced working memory compared to neurotypicals. This means the cognitive load of programming is higher. Types allows one to "forget" about details, as long as the general idea is kept.
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This is one of the big factors for me too. The other thing is that I tend to think very broadly in a bunch of different directions at once, and being able to write types allow me to organize my conceptual model of the problem in a way that makes sense to others & me in the future
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Thank you both.
I do not have ADHD-related experience. However, most people I meet have difficulties with forming reasonable system models in their heads. We propose #MoldableDevelopment to adjust this. I’d be very interested to see if this addresses your experience as well.
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Moldable development is about constructing custom tools that summarize the system. We construct them for every problem we encounter. This enhances our comprehension abilities multiple fold when compared to reading code (even when the code is decorated with types).
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So, how does #MoldableDevelopment work?
Once we accept that systems are data, it becomes obvious we should approach it like data, too. How do we do that?
Data science tells us that you first start from the problem and then reason through a tool that matches the context.
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Do you have to remember/keep track of if your system is currently in a broken state or not? Or do you have to remember to tie up loose ends when changing stuff?
With the way my brain works I find it incredibly useful to farm that off to a type system, even if it is inherently conservative. Keeping things connected together properly and remembering what I'm doing is incredibly stressful for me in very dynamic systems.
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I agree that types can be useful to sone extent. I am only saying that there is a whole practice that can potentially help many times more, and I would be interested to explore with interested people how it works when ADHD is involved.
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