Hi! I’m in SE, but I’ve collaborated and published with PL researchers - I’m starting at UMass in January!

Variable names are def important!

In addition, higher reading ability correlates with lower cognitive load while debugging. But, we don’t see any differences in end-to-end debugging outcomes in this work.

We find that stages of debugging are neurally distinct, and that changes in variable name construction can increase cognitive load across debugging phases.

E.g., changing the meaning or construction or a variable name can impact code readability in a way that’s detectable at the cognitive level!

24 schools for me!

If you are curious, there are a few more data points from SE/PL faculty job searches here: csguides.github.io/grad-job-gui...