What Makes Code Readable: Not What You Think

April 19, 2013 at 1:58 am

This is a nice post considering the interaction between language complexity, readability, and learnability. It could have been made stronger by including some of the empirical data. Thomas Green in his empirical research on language features didn’t just find that explicit BEGIN IF…END IF blocks were easier to read by novices, he found that they were TEN TIMES easier for novices to read. Being less succinct is not just easier for novices, it may be so much easier that it’s the difference between success and giving up.

My point is, the larger the vocabulary you have, the more succinctly ideas can be expressed, thus making them more readable, BUT only to those who have a mastery of that vocabulary and grammar. If we made the English language smaller, and reduced the complex rules of grammar to a more much simple structure, we’d make it much easier to learn, but we’d make it harder to convey information.

via What Makes Code Readable: Not What You Think | Making the Complex Simple.

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Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: computing education research, computing for everyone.