The Computer Journal
The Role of Domain Expenence in Software Design
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering - Special issue on artificial intelligence and software engineering
Planning in the context of human-computer interaction
Proceedings of Third Conference of the British Computer Society Human-Interactio on People and computers III
Reading and writing with computers: a framework for explaining differences in performance
Communications of the ACM
Issues governing the suitability of programming languages for programming tasks
Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the British Computer Society on People and computers IV
Parsing and Gnisrap: a model of device use
Empirical studies of programmers: second workshop
Cognitive dimensions of notations
Proceedings of the fifth conference of the British Computer Society, Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group on People and computers V
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The use of pseudo-code and pen and paper are prevalent within the task of programming. However, few studies examine the use of informal notations or the use of the paper medium. In this article, I offer a psychological analysis of the use of pseudo-code and pen and paper by experienced programmers. In particular, I investigate how such informal notations and the paper medium support the cognitively complex task of programming. The basis of the investigation is an analysis of the notes that programmers make during programming. These notes were collected from eight experienced programmers, who were all programming in different languages with different programming environments. Interviews and questionnaires were used as supplementary data. In the analysis based on these data, I describe the kinds of tasks done using pseudo-code and pen and paper, and I offer an account of why these tasks are done using these particular notations and this medium. This study suggests that programmers use pseudo-code and pen and paper to reduce the cognitive complexity of the programming task.