Someone requested that I post the slides so he could get the url’s I referenced. I think there was too many copyrighted images in the slides for me to put them online, but I’ll post the links for reference:

Working memory limitations: Oberauer & Risse (2010), Selection of objects and tasks in working memory, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol 63 (4), 784-804.

Object Factory Pattern: Update on the Natural Programming Project

Data-driven programming: The Evidence Based Software Engineering database

Also, after my talk someone notified me about the interesting blog Psychology of Video Games

And finally: A million thanks to the people who gave me feedback on the talk!

I’m also hoping I’ll be able to put together a lightning talk about an interesting little finding from cognitive psychology that might put a light on what the default variable does to Perl code readability.  But as the talk is neither finished, submitted nor approved on the day of registration, it is a bit unlikely that will happen, although I’m hoping for a bit of slack in the lightning talk approval process…

It also includes a few links to some really interesting blog posts: Does parallel processing require new languages?, What do you consider readable code?, The Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors and this old article from Computerworld on how community and culture goes hand in Perl.

Enjoy.

Oh, and it also seems to be written extensively in rhyme.

Link to the PPIG.

Meet SEED: The Software Engineering Evidence Database. This is a project from California Polytechnic trying to make empirical evidence-based research on software engineering easily accessible. Acknowledging that “software developers are known for adopting new technologies and practices based solely on their novelty, promise, or anecdotal evidence“, the university researchers have tried to put together a database of experiment summaries on topics of interest to software developers.

The database covers subject such as OO Metrics, Design Patterns, Testing and more, and the 200+ current summaries are written by graduate students and are provided with quality ratings. The goals of the project can be summarized as:

The concept of a community-driven Web database was proposed to engage Net generation students and softwareprofessionals with evidence-based software engineering. We deliberately chose the social networking approach of user-generated and reviewed content as a way to implement SEEDS since we thought that students would more easily relate to the course project and be more enthusiastic about it.

Also have a look at the project summary: “Engaging the net generation with evidence-based software engineering through a community-driven web database” by David S. Janzena  and Jungwoo Ryoob.

Among the resources out there, there is an interest group – The Psychology of Programming Interest Group, that organizes annual workshops and publishes a newsletter. Although the page seems dead, there is apparently was a 2009 workshop. The group has also been around for 21 years, so it is no new-comer.

Also, nothing exists before it has it’s own Wikipedia page. Although short, it directed me to the book Psychology of Computer Programming by Gerard M. Weinberg, who also have several other interesting-sounding books, like Understanding The Professional Programmer. Although, from my point of view, the programming is more interesting than the programmer, and with a title sounding like that, it seems more like a management book than a science book.  However, if I get my hands on it will definitively be an interesting read. As for the first-mentioned book, it will be intersting to see if it still holds up: it was published in 1971 and is apparently a classic. Also, Mr. Weinberg has a home page with a very worthy aim!

Also, in academic work, the page of Jorma Sajaniemi came up pretty quick. His page has some very interesting stuff on variable roles and OO methodology that goes really to the core of human computer programming.  He also provided a link to the Journal of Human Technology which adds nicely to the other relevant science journals I’ve gathered – you’ll find them in the list of links. Among other academic work, the Natural Programming lab at CMU seems to have interesting stuff going on.

As for other bloggers, the PPIG has a list of their blogging members, and I’ll just blatantly copy it here:

• Luke Church
• Chris Douce on something to be decided yet
• Mark Guzdial on computing education
• Johanna Hunt
• Paola Kathuria
• Walter Milner
• Frank Wales

I’ve also found quite a few articles on their own, but I’ll try to include them later in separate articles after I’ve managed to read through them all myself. However, this annotated bibliography on the Psychology of Programming is a great academic starting point!

When I started looking into this I actually thought this was some afterthought few people had ever looked into. It turns out that anything you start on, someone else out on the Internet is already doing a Ph.D. on… I am happy to see there is good material to work with, of course – but I’m also a bit disappointed as I actually hoped I could set out and do my own experiments and break some new ground as a happy amateur.  However – I still hope to do the latter, although the bar is raised now and some obvious material is already covered.

So, is your blog missing or are you a PoP researcher not mentioned? Please let me know in the comment field and I will gladly add you to the link list and the post!

To start out, “programming” is about computer programming, the art of instructing computer behaviour through language. The “psychology” part is about the scientific study of the mind, brain and human behaviour.  Put together it makes up the stuff this blog is dedicated to explore: the part human brains play in the process of computer programming.

And does that mean asking computer programmers about their childhood?

How fun that ever may be, not really. The intention is to find and share good resources on how programmers and others understand their code, how different methodologies such as SCRUM and XP affect the people programming, applying existing ideas from psychology on programming, such as exploring individual differences, personality types and cognitive processes.

Ultimately, how much our idea of computer programming is of a lone brain communicating with a machine on the machine’s terms, this is rarely the case. Our programming languages are made as much for humans as they are for machines – or rather are bastardized attempts of considering both. Programming is in most professional forms also a form of engineering, where co-operating and communicating with other humans are just as, or more, important than the actual act of building programs.

And who is writing it? I am Mats Stafseng Einarsen. I have 10 years of experience in professional software engineering, as well as a degree in Psychology. Now I want to explore computer programming using the tools of Psychology, such as controlled experiments, statistics, surveys and individual differences measures.  I don’t intend this to be a pure blog, but also a starting point for programmers who want to participate in some experiments and tests and check up on the results. Ultimately, I also want to implement some ideas in real code!

So is it a personal blog? Not really, it just happens to be just one person involved.. If you want to help out, write posts, notify me about some resources, make a cool graphic, help out creating some experiments in your language of choice, please get in touch!