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foofoo12 3 hours ago

> most programmers are visual thinkers

I remember reading that there's a link between aphantasia (inability to visualize) and being on the spectrum.

Being an armchair psychologist expert with decades of experience, I can say with absolute certainty that a lot of programmers are NOT visual thinkers.

notmyjob 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Math achievement correlates strongly with visuospatial reasoning. Programmers may not be as proficient in math as economists, but they are better at it than biologists or lawyers.

1980phipsi 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I would distinguish between visual imagination and visuospatial reasoning.

For people like myself with aphantasia, there are often problems solving strategies that can help you when you can’t visualize. Like draw a picture.

And lots of problems don’t really require as much visual imagination as you would think. I’m pretty good at math, programming, and economics. Not top tier, but pretty good.

If there are problems out there that you struggle with compared to others, then that’s the universe telling you that you don’t have a comparative advantage in it. Do something else and hire the people who can more easily solve them if you need it.

neffy an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

And since the economist's main skill at math is fitting a very short ruler to a very large curve... i wouldn't put them ahead of lawyers...

voidUpdate 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you have anything I can read about that? I'm definitely on the spectrum and have whatever the opposite of aphantasia is, I can see things very clearly in my head

treyd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is interesting because, to me, programing is a deeply visual activity. It feels like wandering around in a world of forms until I find the structures I need and actually writing out the code is mostly a formality.