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If you're working with what you perceive to be "trivial cognitive workloads" I think that is more a sign that you aren't quite working at the level you're capab

by pavas 7y ago

If you're working with what you perceive to be "trivial cognitive workloads" I think that is more a sign that you aren't quite working at the level you're capable of, than a sign that you're a really intelligent person. The thing is that all humans have a limited working memory (which generally correlates with 'intelligence'). Whether you can juggle 3 objects in your working memory or 30 doesn't matter; eventually you will get to a problem that you can't hold within your working memory. At that point you will need to start using abstractions for both object-structure and functional characteristics. The limit of what you can do with abstraction is way higher than that of your working memory or intelligence. As a rule it's always better to properly abstract and structure your code, to keep it as simple and well-formed as possible, and to let your tooling deal with any higher-order actions. As a bonus this allows other people to have an easy time understanding your code, especially when those 'other people' are your future selves.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
>If you're working with what you perceive to be "trivial cognitive workloads" I think that is more a sign that you aren't quite working at the level you're capable of, than a sign that you're a really intelligent person. Logically it can be a sign of either. If the cognitive workloads are on average hard for normal people and you perceive it to be trivial than you are likely intelligent. If the workload is considered to be trivial by most people and you see it as hard than you are likely not intelligent. >The thing is that all humans have a limited working memory (which generally correlates with 'intelligence'). Whether you can juggle 3 objects in your working memory or 30 doesn't matter; eventually you will get to a problem that you can't hold within your working memory. At that point you will need to start using abstractions for both object-structure and functional characteristics. The limit of what you can do with abstraction is way higher than that of your working memory or intelligence. I get where you're coming from. Think of it this way. If we organize the complexity of programs into layers such that each layer functions as an abstraction to reduce cognitive overhead, then we can use the number of layers as a quantitative measure of how much abstractions were used on a program. A very intelligent person would use 3 layers while a less intelligent person would organize the program into 10 layers. There see how it works? Yes complexity is potentially unlimited but the more intelligent person still ends up relying on abstractions less than the unintelligent one.

by pavas 7y ago

crimsonalucard 7y ago

>If you're working with what you perceive to be "trivial cognitive workloads" I think that is more a sign that you aren't quite working at the level you're capable of, than a sign that you're a really intelligent person. Logically it can be a sign of either. If the cognitive workloads are on average hard for normal people and you perceive it to be trivial than you are likely intelligent. If the workload is considered to be trivial by most people and you see it as hard than you are likely not intelligent. >The thing is that all humans have a limited working memory (which generally correlates with 'intelligence'). Whether you can juggle 3 objects in your working memory or 30 doesn't matter; eventually you will get to a problem that you can't hold within your working memory. At that point you will need to start using abstractions for both object-structure and functional characteristics. The limit of what you can do with abstraction is way higher than that of your working memory or intelligence. I get where you're coming from. Think of it this way. If we organize the complexity of programs into layers such that each layer functions as an abstraction to reduce cognitive overhead, then we can use the number of layers as a quantitative measure of how much abstractions were used on a program. A very intelligent person would use 3 layers while a less intelligent person would organize the program into 10 layers. There see how it works? Yes complexity is potentially unlimited but the more intelligent person still ends up relying on abstractions less than the unintelligent one.