Paola, >The Week is a news magazine which digests local and world news. >The "Health & Science" page often includes dubious research but >I wondered how much of these results could also apply to expert >programmers.
In the chess sense I don't think there are any expert programmers. A chess grand master spends 10+ years studying the moves of past games (there are some very thick books containing lists of the moves in famous games). There is also a straightforward way of measuring progress, winning/loosing games. What else; there are teachers, tournaments, time to study (which explains why good chess players seem to be poor; or at least those not at the very top). In programming there are books of algorithms + code, and source code is available. But I think anybody (apart from the authors) that this code represented best practices. Not that this matters since few people spend time reading. Programming continues to be a predominantly a write only activity. Even if somebody was willing to study for 10 years, how would their efforts be measured? As for programmers having time to study (and of course they claim to be poor). I think programming performance is still dominated by ability, not training. > How to be a Grandmaster (The Week, 25 Aug 2001) > > "To be a chess Grandmaster, skill is not enough. You also need a > prodigious memory. Scientists have discovered that professional > players use a completely different part of their brain from > amateurs that enables them to access a huge "memory bank" of more > than 100,000 moves. During the game they simply delve into the bank > and pluck out the right one. Amateurs, by contrast, analyse each > new move, work out their opponent's strategy and try to counter it. A good reference is Expert and exceptional performance by Ericsson & Lehmann, in Annual Review of Psychology 1996, 47:273-305. At least for the expert stuff. I don't know about the brain usage research. derek -- Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
