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> There are people doing research into this, for example comparing how quickly various styles of loops are understood by beginning users (I wish I could find th
by lgas 9y ago
> There are people doing research into this, for example comparing how quickly various styles of loops are understood by beginning users (I wish I could find the talk on that right now). Like you said, it's not taken very seriously though.
I don't know other research exists, but I wouldn't personally value any research on beginning users comprehension because you're typically a beginner in a new language for a few days to a few weeks but an experienced user for years or decades, so beginner experience is just not something I care about in the big picture. (Obviously there are reasons other people might care about it... it affects initial adoption of the language and so on, but I just don't care about them personally).
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoThe problem with studying humans is that you need relatively blank slates so you can have proper control groups. Experts or non beginners are hardly blank slates, so are much more difficult to study in the lab.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lgas 9y agoI get that, and I don't have any great ideas for solutions, but I hope we can find an effective way to study the people of interest rather than to study a group of decidedly different people and try to extrapolate the results to the original group.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoThere are other ways, and they are used, but they aren't scientific enough (even if useful) to be published.