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Another nail in the coffin of the claim that imperative programming is more intuitive, persistently asserted without good evidence. I submit that when people m
by ionfish 15y ago
Another nail in the coffin of the claim that imperative programming is more intuitive, persistently asserted without good evidence.
I submit that when people make claims of this sort, what they usually mean is actually "I'm used to doing it this way". Some actual studies of how new programmers learn would be valuable, and allow us to begin to evaluate claims like the above with at least a modicum of objectivity.
- michael_dorfman 15y agoI don't think that referring to a single anecdote as a "nail in the coffin" of a position while complaining of the lack of "actual studies" in support of that position is terribly consistent.
- ionfish 15y agoThe position I'm attacking is the claim that it's just obvious that imperative programming is more intuitive, not that it is more intuitive. By exhibiting counterexamples to this supposedly obvious assertion, it's shown that it is not in fact obvious. Whether imperative or declarative programming is in fact more intuitive is, of course, not something to be settled by the anecdote give in the link.
- gtrak 15y agoThis is explored very well in Rich Hickey's 'Simple Made Easy' talk, check it out: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
- forensic 15y agothis isnt an issue with imperative programming, it's an issue with BASIC and the stupid way that computer scientists use math symbols