Types and other techniques as an accessibility tool for the ADHD brain - M.Newton | Lambda Days 2024

CodeSync · April 7, 2025, 1:00pm

This talk was recorded at Lambda Days in June 2024. If you’re curious about our upcoming event, check https://lambdadays.org

Abstract
More than 10 years into his programming career, being diagnosed with ADHD brought a change to how Michael viewed many of the common arguments in modern software (types or tests? functional or OO?). It became apparent pretty quickly that many of the programming paradigms and tools he’d grown to view as “best” over the years lined up suspiciously closely as excellent compensations for the areas that are often weakest for those with ADHD.

Maybe, rather than trying to find papers proving the advantages of type systems, it would be more productive to explain how they help compensate for easy distractability. Is the completeness checking of discriminated unions a straight jacket on flexibility, or a valuable tool to help against a limited working memory?

Come on a personal tour of one programmer’s experience with an atypical mind, and let it impact how you choose and create technologies for humans rather than for best practices.

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