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The Programmer's Brain

What Every Programmer Needs to Know About Cognition

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The Programmer's Brain

Written by: Felienne Hermans
Narrated by: Christopher Kendrick
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About this listen

Your brain responds in a predictable way when it encounters new or difficult tasks. This unique book teaches you concrete techniques rooted in cognitive science that will improve the way you learn and think about code. You will learn:

  • Fast and effective ways to master new programming languages
  • Speed-reading skills to quickly comprehend new code
  • Techniques to unravel the meaning of complex code
  • Ways to learn new syntax and keep it memorized
  • Writing code that is easy for others to read
  • Picking the right names for your variables
  • Making your codebase more understandable to newcomers
  • Onboarding new developers to your team

Learn how to optimize your brain’s natural cognitive processes to read code more easily, write code faster, and pick up new languages in much less time. This book will help you through the confusion you feel when faced with strange and complex code, and explain a codebase in ways that can make a new team member productive in days!

About the Technology

Take advantage of your brain’s natural processes to be a better programmer. Techniques based in cognitive science make it possible to learn new languages faster, improve productivity, reduce the need for code rewrites, and more.

About the Book

The Programmer’s Brain unlocks the way we think about code. It offers scientifically sound techniques that can radically improve the way you master new technology, comprehend code, and memorize syntax. You’ll learn how to benefit from productive struggle and turn confusion into a learning tool. Along the way, you’ll discover how to create study resources as you become an expert at teaching yourself and bringing new colleagues up to speed.

About the Audience

For programmers who have experience working in more than one language.

About the Author

Dr. Felienne Hermans is an associate professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She has spent the last decade researching programming, how to learn, and how to teach it.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Manning Publications (P)2021 Manning Publications
Computer Science Psychology Programming Human Brain
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Understand Your Toolkit

IMO, this is one of the best audio books available on being a programmer, and about managing programmers.

When I was in grade 7, the gym teacher took a group of us to the field to teach us how to catch a football. Before we started he asked, “what is the first part of your body to make contact with the ball?”. The answers started at the sensible and progressively devolved, as nobody guessed his answer. “Your eyes”. Understanding that, was the difference between chasing the ball and path prediction.

It’s like that with programming. We talk about and compare algorithms, architectures, languages, and methodologies, but it all starts in the brain. Understanding that, will help you to become more aware of programming as a human task; a different type of machine with its own coding rules.

I have read similar material written by psychologists, and brain researchers; material read with an intention toward improving my own performance. This though was my first encounter with a book that put that knowledge into context from a programmer’s perspective. Adding that contextual perspective, magnifies the applicability of the knowledge immensely.

Well written and well narrated. Unlike many books on programming this one makes for an easy listen. Well suited for digesting during the morning commute, or while walking the dog.

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