Bryan,
You start v. constructively thinking how to test the non-programmed nature
of - or simply record - the actual writing of programs, and then IMO fail
to keep going.
There have to be endless more precise ways than trying to look at their
brain.
Verbal protocols.
Ask them to use the keyboard for everything - (how much do you guys use the
keyboard vs say paper or other things?) - and you can automatically record
key-presses.
If they use paper, find a surface that records the pen strokes.
Combine with a camera recording them.
Come on, you must be able to give me still more ways - there are multiple
possible recording technologies, no?
Hasn't anyone done this in any shape or form? It might sound as if it would
produce terribly complicated results, but my guess is that they would be
fascinating just to look at (and compare technique) as well as analyse.
Bryan/MT:> Do you honestly think that you write programs in a programmed
way?
That it's not an *art* pace Matt, full of hesitation, halts,
meandering, twists and turns, dead ends, detours etc? If "you have
to have some sort of program to start with", how come there is no
sign of that being true, in the creative process of programmers
actually writing programs?
Two notes on this one.
I'd like to see fMRI studies of programmers having at it. I've seen this
of authors, but not of programmers per-se. It would be interesting. But
this isn't going to work because it'll just show you lots of active
regions of the brain and what good does that do you?
Another thing I would be interested in showing to people is all of those
dead ends and turns that one makes when traveling down those paths.
I've sometimes been able to go fully into a recording session where I
could write about a few minutes of decisions for hours on end
afterwards, but it's just not efficient to getting the point across.
I've sometimes wanted to do this for web crawling, when I do my
browsing and reading, and at least somewhat track my jumps from page to
page and so on, or even in my own grammar and writing so that I can
make sure I optimize it :-) and so that I can see where I was going or
not going :-) but any solution that requires me to type even /more/
will be a sort of contradiction, since then I will have to type even
more, and more.
Bah, unused data in the brain should help work with this stuff. Tabletop
fMRI and EROS and so on. Fun stuff. Neurobiofeedback.
- Bryan
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Engineers: http://heybryan.org/exp.html
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