{"id":1199,"date":"2010-04-14T11:32:35","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T01:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2010-04-14T11:32:35","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T01:32:35","slug":"is-the-compiler-a-distraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2010\/04\/14\/is-the-compiler-a-distraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Compiler a Distraction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a thought that was triggered while considering the impact of unit tests<\/a> in my last post.<\/p>\n

Context switches for the human brain are expensive – not only does it take time to remember what you were thinking before, but they offer an opportunity for distraction and to not return to the primary task.<\/p>\n

Delays waiting for the computer offer a forced context switch. <\/p>\n

This comes in many flavours, and can probably explain more behaviour than I had previously expected. For example, abandoned print-outs<\/a> can be seen as a classic case of a forced wait, triggering a context switch and a distraction.<\/p>\n

Large compilation time produces a common delay in the the workflow of a software developer. Perhaps scripting languages, such as Python, are (perceived as?) more productive than compiled languages not<\/em> because loose typing unshackles the developer’s creativity, but because there are no large compilation delays in the workflow. Sure, they may run slower, but that slowness is typically spread out, never being boring enough to trigger a context switch.<\/p>\n

I have often noticed that, in PHP development, the download of edited code to the test server takes up the same role as compilation in my workflow; just slow enough to facilitate distraction, but without the benefits of the forced poor man’s unit-test<\/a>. I don’t perceive PHP development as particularly productive, but that may also due to my dislike of the poor language design. (To be fair, this is an issue with web-development, and the choice of PHP is theoretically orthogonal. In practice, I wouldn’t touch PHP for any other purpose, where I wasn’t forced to use it.)<\/p>\n

Unit tests serve the same barrier. Sure they don’t need to be run as commonly as a compiler or ftp\/rsync\/unison<\/a>, but they offer that speed bump in the workflow. No – speed bump is the wrong analogy. Traffic lights. Not only do they slow you down, but they offer you the opportunity to take a wrong turn while you are waiting.<\/p>\n

This is not an attack on compiled languages, scripted languages, PHP, web-site development, unit tests or traffic lights. It is merely an observation about where my easily-distracted brain gets tripped up when trying to be productive… Okay, it really is an attack on PHP, but that wasn’t the main point.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the real problem with compilers (and web-development and unit-tests) that they force a context-switch in the middle of the development process?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,34,27],"tags":[344,345,347,69,346],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observation","category-software-development","category-thoughts-from-the-shower","tag-brain","tag-distractions","tag-productivity","tag-software","tag-unit-tests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}