Functional Geekery Episode 55 - Andreas Stefik

In this episode I talk with Andreas Stefik. We cover the human factors side of programming languages and he gives a rundown of what the little research we have on programming language usability.

Our Guest, Andreas Stefik

@AndreasStefik on Twitter
http://web.cs.unlv.edu/stefika/index.html

Sponsors

This episode is sponsored by DailyDrip.com. Use the coupon `geekery` to save $5 on your first month, and make learning part of your daily routine with DailyDrip.com.

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io project management tools for software teams. Visit clubhouse.io/geekery to sign up for a free trial and a $50 credit. Clubhouse: dream, develop, deploy.

Announcements

PolyConf 2016 will be taking place on June 30th – July 2nd. Visit http://polyconf.com/ to keep updated with news as more details become available.

Curry On is taking place July 18th and 19th in Rome. Visit curry-on.org to find out more and to register.

Full Stack Fest will be hold in Barcelona on September 5-9th. You can check out 2016.fullstackfest.com —to find out more.

The Erlang User Conference is coming up in Stockholm, Sweden, the 6th through the 16th of September. Early Bird tickets are now available and get a 10% discount on the conference when you use the code: FunctionalGeekery10 when registering.

Destination Code, a new unconference starting in Utah, is having its inaugural event this December. Visit http://www.destination.codes/ to find out more.

If you have a conference related to functional programming, contact me, and I will be happy to announce it.

Topics

About Andreas
University of Nevada at Las Vegas
Andreas on Ruby Rogues
About Human Factors of Programming Languages
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho’s paper on only 22 studies on programming languages
How Andreas came into studying Human Factor
Stefan Hanenberg
How do blind people do programming?
How people that are novices understand syntax
What the landscape of studies look like now
Alice programming language
ICFP has Zero studies coming out of that conference
What the studies show between static and dynamic languages
What “a reliable study” means
Randomized Controlled Trial
“After a certain level of experience, static typing benefits human beings”
Neil Brown
BlueJ
Relation of static types to implicit or explicit types
Andreas’ 2×2 study on static vs dynamic types **Updated Link on 2016-06-16**: The ACM site needs to be accessed from Andreas’ site to view papers.
Status of studies on inherently simple vs complex languages
Token Accuracy Mapping
Quorum programming language
Studies on complier errors
Neil Brown’s 37 Million Compilations: Investigating Novice Programming Mistakes in Large-Scale Student Data
Jaime Spacco
Google’s study on compiler errors for professionals
Paul Denny’s All Syntax Errors Are Not Equal.
Status of studies on immutability
Overview of studies on lambdas
Andreas’ study on lambdas vs iterators
Expertise Reversal
How people can help drive the research forward
Educate yourself on the standard of research in other fields
Where can people keep updated on progress of the studies
programminglanguageusability.org
EPIQ 2016
Quorum Google Group
Quorum Language on Facebook

As always, a giant Thank You goes to David Belcher for the logo design.

Episode source