Re:The language brain matters more for learning programming ...
by john-h-k on Saturday May 03, 2025 @07:50AM
(#43878450)
> I certainly don’t dispute the empirical validity of the findings from the study
You absolutely should. Tiny sample size and poor statistical method. It is p-hacking plain and simple
Re:The language brain matters more for learning programming ...
by TheGrognardling on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @11:28AM
(#43906237)
Okay, yeah - fair point. I admittedly didn't look too closely at the article before posting this - and I'm not too statistically-minded in many respects. But upon further investigation, yeah, you seem to be right. I think this article is really just promotional material for something.
It wasn’t until high school, when I tested-into the highest math class that the school offered, that I began to unlock (with some initial struggle) more logical and procedural reasoning specific to mathematics that I had always done well in, but never explicitly went above-and-beyond in, despite hints of such in arithmetic competitions that my school would hold and that sort of thing. I just think my brain works well for both the linguistic aspects of programming (more naturally) and the computational problem-solving aspects of programming. Certainly there are individuals who have strengths in both cognitive aspects, despite being more naturally-attuned to one versus the other, at least presumably.
Perhaps this shows a cognitive profile that has natural strengths in both "brains", or maybe this highlights limitations of the article's potentially narrow definitions of "language" and "math", implying a more complex intellectual landscape.
Interesting findings nonetheless.