I don't have aphantasia, but I'd be interested to know how it influences coding and software development.
I think, coding typically involves a lot of keeping track of the "runtime state" of the program, i.e. how variables, data structures, objects, resources, threads etc change state during various points of the program. Same goes for the "architecture" of a software system.
As a programmer, that's what you're usually do "in your head" when understanding or writing code.
I do a lot of that by visualizing. I'd be interested to know how people with aphantasia are doing it.
I have aphantasia and I don’t have much trouble thinking of data structures and so on without visualising them. It’s hard to describe how I do it. I do imagine it would be easier with visualisation. If it gets hard I’ll use a pen and paper or an editor to make diagrams.
Things I seem to be average or above average at that I’d expect aphantasia to be a disadvantage for:
- the “chimp test” (search if you don’t know what this is)
- chess (but I have hit a wall at 1500 on chess.com and I find it very hard to explore future moves in my head more than a few. I feel like if I studied chess 8 hours a day for 30 years I still couldn’t hope to play blindfold chess)
- remembering numbers and computer facts.
- spelling including remembering spellings of obscure surnames I’ve never heard of before
I think even people without aphantasia can’t typically use visualisation for reliable storage of things even in the short term, correct me if I’m wrong. A extremely rare few have a photographic memory.
I think, coding typically involves a lot of keeping track of the "runtime state" of the program, i.e. how variables, data structures, objects, resources, threads etc change state during various points of the program. Same goes for the "architecture" of a software system.
As a programmer, that's what you're usually do "in your head" when understanding or writing code.
I do a lot of that by visualizing. I'd be interested to know how people with aphantasia are doing it.