"The average [professional] FORTRAN programmer majored in computer science... the average COBOL programmer majored in social science or humanities." From a programmer profile in a psychological study, 1987. Wonder if the latter is still true for any language today.
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"Stimulus structures and mental representations in expert comprehension of computer programs" Pennington 1987. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028587900077 …
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Replying to @wcrichton
This doesn't sound right to me at all. By 1987 I think very few computer scientists were programming in FORTRAN, but it was very popular with physicists, engineers, and the like. Book titles from the era bear me out, there are a lot like "FORTRAN for engineers".
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Replying to @raphlinus
The study was run in Chicago, not sure what the predominant FORTRAN-using industry would have been there. If it was industry, perhaps more plausible that it's programmers/computer scientists than engineers?
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*If it was finance
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cognitive psychology. PhD