Is using an IDE like playing a musical instrument? April 24, 2006
Posted by James Webster in : development , trackbackI recently caught up with a former colleague, Greg Davis, over a few drinks. We were discussing IntelliJ, our mutually preferred development tool for Java and how it can be hard to describe just what the keyboard shortcuts are. I’ve found that I frequently cannot verbally describe what the key combination is for a given refactoring; its easier to just do it and have my programming buddy observe which combination of modifier and alphabet keys were pressed to get the job done. It occurred to me that this is much the same as how some musicians informally communicate how to play a particular piece by demonstrating the correct finger placement to get from one chord to another.
As someone who played piano for quite a few years and still tinkers with a synth every now and then, I wonder if handiness with keyboard shortcuts is supported by musical abilities? If we want to get better at freeing ourselves from the mouse and keeping both hands on the keyboard, maybe we should pick up a guitar first?
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Actually, this ability of a person to be unable to describe playing a musical instrument but rather showing someone what they are doing can be applied across almost all physical activity. I think “muscle memory” is the term used to describe this trait. Other common examples are driving and participating in almost any form of sport.
I don’t have the same problem with remembering key combinations, but I have noticed how inept and slow I seem to be at “playing” the IDE compared with some of my colleagues. The main difference seems to be my inability to touch-type, so I am constantly looking down at the keyboard to confirm finger placements.
As for any relation to playing musical instruments, I also have problems getting my fingers to play notes at different times when playing a keyboard. I always put it down to an inherent lack of coordination, but maybe I just have stubborn fingers.
This relates to the concept of “Flow,” as defined by Csikszentmihalyi.
Take a look at the following paper for a detailed discussion of this topic in the context of IDEs: http://hcil.cs.umd.edu/trs/2003-37/2003-37.html
-Faiser
‘Playing’ the IDE, as you suggest, is an EXPLICIT action - pressing the right key combination(s) in the right order. It is a single event, or short series of discrete events, with few limits on timing or context to what came before or what will come after.
Playing a musical instrument is a TACIT action - years of training to perfect touch, timing, expression, interpretation and emotion, set within the context of a ‘whole piece’ of music. Your rendition of a ‘key combination’ can be, and should be, very different to anothers as it takes into account your personal representation of the world through your own past events and future possibilities.
This shows the philosophical distinction between OBJECTIVISM and CONSTRUCTIVISM theories of knowledge creation and dissemination. The IDE key combination CAN be explicitely described in an external form (email, book, discussion group). How sombody plays an instrument CANNOT.
Further authors on the subject: Polanyi, Nonaka & Takeuchi, Tsoukas.
-Paul
I’ve found that repeating the keyboard shortcuts to a new pair is more difficult than doing it, but that’s simply because it’s not all the time that you repeat the shortcuts, whilst typing is *very* constant. I can tell you one thing though, the muscle memory of the keyboard doesn’t help the other way around with instruments!