*blink* That's neat.

[Martijn Faassen]

Fredrik Lundh <effbot at telia.com> wrote:
> Martijn Faassen wrote:
>> > I'm probably just dense, but how would you design such a
>> > double-blind test?
>> 
>> Construct two Python interpreters (or environments). One is case-sensitive,
>> the other is case-insensitive. Then randomly distribute them to your
>> newbie programmers.

> how do you make sure that the *observers* won't be able to
> figure out what kind of interpreter any given user is using?

With observers, do you mean the people helping the newbies? I was
imagining some controlled circumstances where there aren't any 
helpers around when the newbies get down to the actual business of
programming. Of course that biases your tests, *too*. 

Or do you mean the newbies themselves? Obviously they can figure it
out for themselves, but that's part of the test, isn't it? 

> (if you don't, it's not really a double-blind test, right?)

Anyway, you may be right and it's not a genuine double-blind test; but
if you want to do actual measurement with some semblance of objectivity
you're going to have to devise something like this. Perhaps some
messing around with various circumstances and statistics can allow one
to get some decent results that way.

Anyway, I was making the point that good empirical tests on this are
hard to do; perhaps you're right and double-blind tests are impossible.

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
No, WWW -- Could we be going in the right direction?