Weinberg code shuffling (tracking issue)

[robinp]

Tracking issue to implement various code shufflers, inspired by Gerald M. Weinberg's the Psychology of Computer Programming (Part 4, Chapter 13, Documentation).

The observation is that once a programmer is stuck on debugging, he is stuck since he already tried all rational approaches. So irrational / unconventional methods are needed to shake the programmer out of stuckness - the "set". In Underhood we constrain the methods to code display methods.

Examples from the book (pdf page 442), with some additional remarks:

• Change typography in various ways (example: bold keywords).
• Change multi-use symbols, like ambiguous equals sign, parens by levels.
• List symbols with their references inline (note: likely need to cut to top)
• Strip comments, or keep only comments, or show side-by-side.
• Similarly for literals.
• Rename all variables (maybe keep first char, or assign new sequential chars... maybe take scope into account)
• Expand abbreviations or abbreviate expansions
• Permute operation order
• List symbols
• Highlight ambiguous or dangerous operations
• Show conditionals as decision tables or other canonical representation (decision tree?)
• Show example in/out results on expressions (note: needs pure functions and interpreting)

(Note: many items from the list, which was published in 1971 originally, is clearly a forerunner of many modern niceties. Absolutely stunning, respect to the elders.)

Inspired custom additions:

• Turn off syntax highlight.
• Randomize indentation.
• Introduce mutation into source code, and make the programmer find it (Quiz Time!)
• Replace variables with names inferred from their types and usage.
• Replace names with AI-generated names.
• Assign unique color to different variables.
• Assign unique object (pictogram, waveform, number...) to different variables.
• Display as flowchart.
• Add badge to variables noting their usage counts (in same module / other modules / etc), especially write counts.
• Show test cases side-by-side.
• Reorder function sequence within file according to various orders
• Show code bubbles (dynamic reorder based on current focus)

[kamahen]

https://github.com/google/oss-fuzz
https://security.googleblog.com/2019/07/chrome-fuzzer-program-update-and-how-to.html

[robinp]

Ah, I badly overloaded the term fuzzing, thanks. Will change it to something else.