Just a quick note to myself (or others). I've more than once talked about how programming languages should be convenient but that the path of least resistance should encourage good programming. For example, Java's checked exceptions cause the path of least resistance to end up hiding error conditions and details. I don't like Java's checked exceptions.
It just occurred to me (though it's likely been done before by others) that you could formalize the path of least resistance when programming by approximating the gradient descent across some kind of vastly multidimensional space. By observing conditions when programming (maybe only visible in the programs produced, perhaps across time for openly accessible version control), you might be able to define a statistical distribution of cost functions used by programmers when making decisions. Hard to factor in things like deadlines, interpersonal concerns, life circumstances, and so on, but maybe some vague approximate model could be made.
Summary, hopefully in English, is that some folks like formalisms. Otherwise, they don't believe you at all. It might be possible to make a formalism to study the usability of programming languages for writing good software. Not 100% sure, though. Too many assumptions might be needed.
Maybe even simple traditional mining would work (which conditions lead to which decisions), but again there's the complication of labeling data.
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