Lessons learned from The Programmer’s Brain

By on 30 August 2022

Listen now:

This week we talk with AJ Kerrigan (Twitter / LinkedIn) about Felienne Hermans’ The Programmer’s Brain, an important book we recommend every developer should read (at least once).

Structure:
After quickly discussing the gist of the book, we dive into some of the concepts it teaches:
– Chunkability: for faster reading and comprehension of code.
– Germane load: the work required to encode thoughts to long-term memory, and the value of “worked examples”.
– Semantic wave: needing to oscillate (as a teacher) between abstract and concrete as you learn.
– Cognitive dimensions of codebases and tradeoffs in code you write and tools you use.
– Practicing code reading (Code Reading Clubs): entry points and use of a debugger. 

Useful links:
– PyBites #082 on type hints
– A Case Study in Refactoring Python
– CodeTour
– Annotated Underscore.js Source Code
– Inception Layers and Interruptability
– Many More Much Smaller Steps
– Code Reading Club
– Writing Excuses
– Pybites platform (check out the forums!)
– And a special shoutout to the Teaching Python podcast as well.
– Book AJ is reading: An Unintended Voyage (complete Pybites podcast reading list)

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