Comments for /dev/psychology

Comment on Psychology talk from YAPC::NA 2010 online by YAPC::NA day three » hashbang.ca

YAPC::NA day three » hashbang.ca — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:53:17 +0000

[...] If that interests you, http://evidencebasedse.com/ is a great read, and Mats Einarsen gave a talk on this at YAPC::NA 2010. Sadly, he wasn’t able attend this year, so I’ve never met him [...]

Comment on About by Roger Alexander

Roger Alexander — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:49:53 +0000

Hi,

I came across your blog today and find it interesting. I am someone who also has been writing software for quite sometime, and I too am interested in understanding the psychological side of the discipline. So I am taking you up on your request for help. If you are in fact serious about this, please contact me at your convenience.

Roger Alexander.

Comment on Why do programmer personality types matter? by Bricolage, tinkering and gender differences in programming | American News Blog

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:54:10 +0000

[...] often describe our opportunistic developer persona in this way (see http://p.einarsen.no/programmer-personality-types-and-why-it-matters-at-all/). The opportunistic developer is one who excels at taking existing code and components and [...]

Comment on Psychology talk from YAPC::NA 2010 online by oylenshpeegul

oylenshpeegul — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:30:16 +0000

It was an awesome moment! Your reaction was perfect: “Uh, thanks.” Interesting talk too! I would like to see the larger talk…I hope that ends up on video some day.

Comment on The double hump of programming classes by Code Poems, how I came to write them. « FORMeika

Code Poems, how I came to write them. « FORMeika — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:53:57 +0000

[...] my life, my involvement with programming computers is a long standing issue. Basically I can do it, unlike some, might have been good at it, but even though I enjoy the results of other people’s work in [...]

Comment on About by Manu

Manu — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:11:33 +0000

Hi Stafseng,

This is the exact kind of research I’m searching for. I think there are certain benefits if this area can get the focus of this kind of research. how people interact in a team can impact the team’s performance to a large extent. The kind of motivation that a team gets also impacts the quality of code. I’m very much interested in your research. All the best !!!

Comment on Psychology of Perl talk links by Zbigniew Lukasiak

Zbigniew Lukasiak — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:26:29 +0000

I am just looking at the Update on the Natural Programming Project video – and wow – there is so much surprising info there! In particular create-set-call versus required params – this goes very much against the trend of ‘immutable objects’ (although it should be possible to reconcile those two) – and yet it feels true.

Comment on The double hump of programming classes by Cay Horstmann

Cay Horstmann — Sun, 30 May 2010 14:36:54 +0000

Do you have any evidence that OOP is to blame? In my experience, having taught objects early, late, and not at all, beginning students tend to fall behind in the same place: loops. Simple linear traversals are ok, but once you go beyond the point where the standard loops can be tweaked, a good percentage of the class has a very hard time. And that complaint is reiterated by instructors in the more advanced courses (“What do you guys do in CS1? The students that come into my class still can’t program loops!”) and even in job interviews (Google for FizzBuzz for some amusing blogs).

Comment on Ending The Long Quiet by Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:24:09 +0000

Ah, so can I say that what you are after are ideas about what to write because what you have become interested in at the moment is the relationship between the psychology of programmers as it figures in the HR process, something you want to safely steer clear of? In which case, how about something more about how programmers generate innovative ideas as opposed to reusing safe, well explored ones?
I find forcing my ideas into a different media helps as in the other media we have different expectations and constraints. For example, as a novice programmer but experienced innovator elsewhere I push programming ideas back and forth between Javascript and PHP, and then into photographs, graphs and blogs – and back. Presumably you have some two way relationship between Perl and your blogs, so do you find this relationship helps you in your programming? Does this give you some edge over programmers who keep their programming more separate from other parts of their life?

Comment on Does code base structure follow organization structure? by Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:47:06 +0000

Well, organization and code structure could be similar if the people creating the organization’s hierarchy are also the same kind of people doing the employing, or at least managing the things that determine whether employees stay with the organization or leave. The chances are, though, that at any time there will be a mix of employees at least to some extent trying to reproduce the type of code structure in which they believe.

Whether this would be a good or bad thing, in my opinion, is whether the customer can accept the product. Even though most of the code might be transparent to the customer, when it comes time to talk about new features one might find that a hierarchically structured code lacks the flexibility to match the changing needs of a customer with a more flat structured organization. And vice versa. In terms of business success as a supplier, it might be worth having on board people capable of understanding the essential need in people for hierarchical, or flat, structures so that the code produced does not lock out the other type of structure.