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HOW_CAN_WE_STUDY_PROGRAMMING

                                             March 19, 2024
                                             April 22, 2024

Gerald M. Weinberg
Psychology of Computer Programming (1971, 1998)

Chapter 3, "How Can We Study Programming"

    "Although some modern students of human
    behavior tend to discredit it as
    nonscientific, introspection has always
    been the first foundation stone of their
    science.  We may quote, for example,
    Sigmund Freud ..."

A reminder that back in 1971 it was still
acceptable to quote Sigmund Freud.


p.31

"... we must be most careful in trying to
carry observations from one context over
into another, because the contexts will
always differ in several ways."


"A third problem with observation is the problem of
interference of the observer with the subject being
observed-- a kind of undertainty principle.  Here
we have much to draw on from the social sciences,
which have long been concerned with thie problem
and have extracted such phenomena as the "Hawthorne      Brown, J.A.C, _The
Effect.  ... certain experiments in industrial           Social Psychology of
psychology failed.  They failed because no matter        Industry_, Baltimore,
how conditions of work changed, productivity rose.       Penguin Books 1954
Eventually, the experimenters came to realize that
the missing factor was the pride the workers took
in being subjects of all this attention."




"The anthropologist tries to make himself 'invisible'          
to the people by becoming so much a part of the             My understanding of how                    
culture that he is not noticed, so the culture can go       anthropologists work is                   
on as if no outsider were there."                           that they know they                
                                                            *can't* be invisible.          
                                                                      
"Another way of being 'invisible' is to observe in          
ways in which the people observed actually have no          
possibility of knowing that they are under                  
observation.  Many such methods exist ..."


p.33

A key feature reducing psychology studies:

"Most important, however, is the subjects are usually free.  As on
wag put it, 'psychology is the psychology of 18-year-old college
freshmen.'  ..."

"Later on, we shall discuss the question of professional versus
amateur programming, and show how this confusion has always
dominated and befuddled thinking about programming."

p.35

"Before we leave the subject of experience and experiments,
we must deal with one other problem, which is important
because of a seldom-questioned view of programming-- a view
which this book will spend a gread deal of time questioning.
That view is that programming is an individual activity, not
a social activity.  To the extent that experimenters have
believed this, they have chosen the individual programmer--
experienced or not-- as the suitable object of study. But
there is much evidence, as we shall see presently, to argue
that the proper study of programming is done at the level of
the programming social unit. "

"Looking back, it seems that forcing programmers to
work in isolation is like trying to study the swimming
behavior of frogs by cutting of their legs and putting
those legs in water to watch them swim."



                    Nothing in this chapter shoots down
                    my proposed research program:

                          MODEST_PROPOSAL

                    It's true that the subjects are expected
                    to be young and relatively inexperienced,
                    but that's not an unimportant subset to
                    study.


       From this chapter's Bibliography:

       Sackman, Harold, _Man-Computer Proglem Solving_,
       Princeton: Auerbach Publishers, 1970.

          "... this book is the first we have on
          methods of psychological research in
          programming"




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