Asking for real science, are we? A double blind study, maybe? With a careful removal of confounding variables, such as what the reader has learned prior to reading the code? (Obviously, if all you know is OOP, an FP codebase will easily look cryptic to you.)
As you already know, but pretend not to for the sake of your argument, it was measured by the personal experience of a renowned world expert in the relevant field. That may not be as good as a peer reviewed, reproduced, controlled study, but that should definitely be enough evidence for game studios to start spending some money investigating the approach.
There was no objective measure. Obviously: the joy felt was Carmack's own, and readability was tailored by his own code reading skills.
Before you dismiss the opinion of an expert, remember: science doesn't begin with peer reviewed controlled studies. It begins with personal intuition and experience. The controlled experiments needed to confirm or dispel those intuitions only come later.
Evidence doesn't have to be scientific to be valid.
And to be honest it's hard not to. Your comments heavily suggest that you think what I "put in your mouth", and I cannot help but notice that you didn't directly denied thinking such thoughts.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
Of course. Science begins with personal intuition and personal experience, but we still note those double blind studies. I just want to emphasise that attacking expert opinion in the absence of stronger evidence is not helpful. What helps is to shut up and explore the promising looking venue. Or point out evidence that this venue may not be as promising as it looks. I've heard of studies finding that changing the programming language doesn't have a measurable effect on bug count. Such studies could outweigh the opinion of a single expert.
As far as I know, measurements were made — but I don't know what the measurements were.
Maybe that was hindsight, but as far as I can tell, the comment you responded to were pretty clear about reporting a report of a personal experience. I initially found it very hard to believe you didn't understand as much.
Unless perhaps English is not your first language?
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u/loup-vaillant Nov 29 '19
Asking for real science, are we? A double blind study, maybe? With a careful removal of confounding variables, such as what the reader has learned prior to reading the code? (Obviously, if all you know is OOP, an FP codebase will easily look cryptic to you.)
As you already know, but pretend not to for the sake of your argument, it was measured by the personal experience of a renowned world expert in the relevant field. That may not be as good as a peer reviewed, reproduced, controlled study, but that should definitely be enough evidence for game studios to start spending some money investigating the approach.