Comment by ABS | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ABS | Hacker News Reader

it's going to take quite some time to read it all since it's long and deserves the time but since it's soliciting early feedback here it is: research and quote all the works done over the last 10 or so years by others in this space!!

The topic of cognitive load in software development is far from rarely considered and in fact it's been somewhat "popular" for several years depending on what communities and circles you participate it on- and off-line.

I'm surprised not to find any mentions to things like:

- the Team Topologies book by Skelton and Pais, published in 2019 where they cover the topic. Particularly of note here is the fact that Skelton has a Computer Science BSc and a Neuroscience MSc

- the many, many, many articles, posts, discussions and conference sessions on congnitive load from the same authors and connected people in subsequent years (I'd say 2021 was a particularly rich year for the topic)

- Dan North sessions, articles and posts from around 2013/2014 in which he talks about code that fits in your head but no more, referencing James Lewis original... insight. E.g. his GOTO 2014 session "Kicking the Complexity Habit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqgwHXsQA1g&t=510s a quick search returns references to it even in articles from 2020 https://martinfowler.com/articles/class-too-large.html

- Rich Hickey's famous 2011 Simple Made Easy talk https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/

>research and quote all the works done over the last 10 years or so by researchers in this space!!

I totally understand your point and appreciate you linking those resources, however I think it's important to remember that the author's post is from a personal blog, not from a scientific journal or arxiv.

Perhaps OP would've never posted this if he felt that his "contribution" wasn't novel enough. Additionally, there's a chance that the wording and tone the author used might speak to people who found the articles you mentioned opaque(and vice versa, obviously).

If the author, feeling the urge to write something up, had looked very hard for "prior work" instead of following the flow of their insights gained through experience, perhaps they would've felt compelled to use the same vocabulary as the source, which has its pros(forwarding instead of reinventing knowledge) and cons(propagating opaque terms, self censoring because of a feeling of incompetence in the face of the almighty researchers).

That's one of the great things about blog posts: to be able to write freely without being blamed for incompleteness or prior art omission.

On a different note, I think this may also highlight the fact that the prior work you mentioned isn't easy enough to find. Perhaps knowledge isn't circulating well enough outside of particular circles.

About "Cognitive load being rarely considered", I meant it in actual project work, not in the sense that the idea of applying cognitive psychology to programming is new.

I am sure the topic has been considered in an academic setting. I would not feel qualified to provide a good reading list on the topic.

This is also related to code quality, thus it will have a ton of relevant work.

Thank you for the links, in particular to Skelton, Pais, I will have a look!

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