High Expectations: An Observational Study of Programming and Cannabis Intoxication
Anecdotal evidence of cannabis use by professional programmers abounds. Recent studies have found that some professionals regularly use cannabis while programming, even for work-related tasks. However, accounts of the impacts of cannabis on programming vary widely and are often contradictory. For example, some programmers claim that it impairs their ability to generate correct solutions, while others claim it enhances creativity and focus. There remains a need for an empirical understanding of the true impacts of cannabis on programming. This paper presents the first controlled observational study of cannabis’s effects on programming ability. Based on a within-subjects design with over 70 participants, we find that, at ecologically valid dosages, cannabis significantly impairs programming performance. \textbf{Programs implemented while high contain more bugs and take longer to write ($p<0.05$)} — a small to medium effect ($0.22 \leq d \leq 0.44$). We also did not find any evidence that high programmers generate more divergent solutions. However, programmers can accurately assess differences in their programming performance ($r=0.59$), even when under the influence of cannabis. We hope that this research will facilitate evidence-based policies and help developers make informed decisions regarding cannabis use while programming.
Thu 18 AprDisplayed time zone: Lisbon change
14:00 - 15:30 | Human and Social 5Software Engineering in Society / Journal-first Papers / New Ideas and Emerging Results / Software Engineering Education and Training / Research Track at Almada Negreiros Chair(s): Alexander Serebrenik Eindhoven University of Technology | ||
14:00 15mTalk | High Expectations: An Observational Study of Programming and Cannabis Intoxication Research Track Wenxin He University of Michigan, Manasvi Parikh University of Michigan, Westley Weimer University of Michigan, Madeline Endres University of Michgain DOI Pre-print | ||
14:15 15mTalk | Mining Pull Requests to Detect Process Anomalies in Open Source Software Development Research Track Bohan Liu Nanjing University, He Zhang Nanjing University, Weigang Ma Nanjing University, Hongyu Kuang Nanjing University, Yi Yang National University of Defense Technology, Jinwei Xu Nanjing University, Shan Gao Huawei, Jian Gao Huawei | ||
14:30 15mTalk | Video-based Training for Meeting Communication Skills Software Engineering Education and Training Matthias Galster University of Canterbury, Antonija Mitrovic University of Canterbury, Sanna Malinen University of Canterbury, Sreedevi Sankara Iyer University of Canterbury, Ja'afaru Musa University of Canterbury, Jay Holland University of Canterbury | ||
14:45 15mTalk | Impostor Phenomenon in Software Engineers Software Engineering in Society Paloma Guenes Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rafael Tomaz Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Marcos Kalinowski Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Maria Teresa Baldassarre Department of Computer Science, University of Bari , Margaret-Anne Storey University of Victoria DOI Pre-print Media Attached | ||
15:00 7mTalk | An Empirical Comparison of Ethnic and Gender Diversity of DevOps and non-DevOps Contributions to Open-Source Projects Journal-first Papers Nimmi Rashinika Weeraddana University of Waterloo, Xiaoyan Xu University of Waterloo, Mahmoud Alfadel University of Waterloo, Shane McIntosh University of Waterloo, Mei Nagappan University of Waterloo Link to publication Pre-print | ||
15:07 7mTalk | Understanding Developers Well-Being and Productivity: a 2-year Longitudinal Analysis during the COVID-19 Pandemic Journal-first Papers Daniel Russo Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Paul Hanel University of Essex, Niels van Berkel Aalborg University DOI Pre-print | ||
15:14 7mTalk | Decomposing and Measuring Trust in Open-Source Software Supply Chains New Ideas and Emerging Results Lina Boughton The College of Wooster, Courtney Miller Carnegie Mellon University, Yasemin Acar Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Dominik Wermke North Carolina State University, Christian Kästner Carnegie Mellon University |