<story><title>Expert programmers have fine-tuned cortical representations of source code</title><url>https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.28.923953v1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ible</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know what &amp;#x27;cortical representations&amp;#x27; are exactly, but it seems generally true that experts in a domain build up gradually higher level pattern recognition in their area of expertise. Whether it is driving a car, playing a sport or game, or writing software.&lt;p&gt;As a beginning programmer I had to consciously think about fundamental concepts all the time, or grapple with my limited knowledge of a programming language, instead of thinking about the problem.&lt;p&gt;As an experienced programmer I think in higher level concepts and abstractions, and the fine code details happen without me consciously thinking about them particularly.&lt;p&gt;This actually makes learning a new programming language or IDE more painful now than it was when I was new. It probably takes me less time to get to an equal level of skill in language X than a beginner, but getting to the level of fluency where the low level details don&amp;#x27;t require conscious thought takes time and practice. Being slowed down so much while getting to that point is deeply frustrating.</text></comment>
<story><title>Expert programmers have fine-tuned cortical representations of source code</title><url>https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.28.923953v1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>BigHatLogan</author><text>&amp;quot;Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.&amp;quot; - Jose Ortega&lt;p&gt;This is fantastic. I&amp;#x27;ve always had a hunch that experts are &amp;quot;seeing&amp;quot; things differently than novices, and seeing things that people who aren&amp;#x27;t in the same domain aren&amp;#x27;t even aware of. As people develop more expertise, I imagine the gap becomes larger, to the point where they&amp;#x27;re aware of things that &amp;quot;laymen&amp;quot; aren&amp;#x27;t even cognizant of.&lt;p&gt;Two examples:&lt;p&gt;In one of Malcolm Gladwell&amp;#x27;s books--I forget which one--he writes about a firefighter who, almost unconsciously, ordered his men out of a building right before it collapsed. He didn&amp;#x27;t even know why. After going through the day&amp;#x27;s events with a researcher, the researcher realized that the fireman was subconsciously (unconsciously?) attuned to what was happening around him. His brain was operating unbeknownst to him due to his years of expertise.&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine started a small business late last year. He started it on a lark, after a trip to the local autobody shop. Usually his spouse handled all of the car-related affairs, but for some reason he ended up having to do it himself this time. When he went to the store, he noticed that the software they were using to manage their inventory was dated and quite awful. He took down the manager&amp;#x27;s information and messaged him a week later with a proposal for revamping their software system. The autobody became his first client. The manager said that hundreds of people come in and out of that store every day, but my friend was the first person to point out that their software wasn&amp;#x27;t very good. My friend isn&amp;#x27;t an expert programmer by any stretch, but he was more of an expert than anybody in that office in regards to developing software. His brain basically zeroed in on it without him noticing.&lt;p&gt;Related to a thread from last week about our brains physically changing depending on what we do and pay attention to: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22201771&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22201771&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve become somewhat &amp;quot;obsessed&amp;quot; with this topic recently and would love to know if others know of any resources I can check out. I read &amp;quot;The World Beyond Your Head&amp;quot; by Matthew Crawford recently--he spells out this phenomenon quite well.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Jose Ortega&amp;#x27;s full name is Jose Ortega y Gasset--I forgot to add the last part.</text></comment>