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Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

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Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#11

Post by Waterluvian »

I tried to finish this quiz but just can’t. Every question I got was a very big, “it depends on context…”

“Do you prefer strong static or dynamic or a mix?” Well… are we teaching 9th graders an intro to coding, writing a quick script to answer a bespoke data question, or writing a data processing library?

“On algorithms I focus on…” Okay, well… do we care about performance? Where is it running? How often will it run? Will the code be disposed of soon or live a decade? Do we need it working today or next week?

I just don’t understand how to even begin formulating an opinion on any of these questions without any context.

To use the compass analogy: shouldn’t you want to best know how to use a compass? What value is there in saying, “my favourite bearing is east-northeast”? That is, the substance in any of this is the “it depends…” portion. Any answers to this quiz are really just a proxy for the kinds of contexts people are solving problems in.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#12

Post by foxbarrington »

GPT-5’s results:

Your Programming Philosophy

You prefer elegant, high-level solutions that are intuitive and accessible to other developers. You likely favor functional programming, clear abstractions, and code that reads like prose.

Abstract ↔ Concrete: +3 Abstract

Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +11 Human-Friendly

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#13

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

You prefer elegant, high-level solutions that are intuitive and accessible to other developers. You likely favor functional programming, clear abstractions, and code that reads like prose.

Abstract ↔ Concrete: +4 Abstract Human ↔ Computer Friendly:+7 Human-Friendly

I like "code that reads like prose" :-)

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#14

Post by stego-tech »

Concrete and human-readable here, which is exactly what I expected to get coming from IT (with short job cycles, high turnover, comparatively low wages) where my guiding principle is not being a dick to the next person by making sure they understand why I did things a given way, and where time to learn new things is very much a “thrown in the fire” type scenario (e.g., learning Asterisk while your global support line is down and your contractor holds non-regional business hours for support).

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#17

Post by Y_Y »

josephg wrote: post #10

I landed right in the middle - -1, -2. Which seems weird because I’m very opinionated about a lot of this stuff. I like a lot of the questions but a lot of my answers felt like I was arbitrarily picking something. That’s probably why. Eg for testing, do I want “whatever finds bugs most effectively” or “property based testing”? Well, property based testing is usually the most time efficient way to find bugs. So, yes b…

Same. I got dead centre, even though I feel like I have strong biases, and rarely agree with my coworkers on design and style choices.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#18

Post by zzo38computer »

It does not display the quiz. I found the JavaScript file, which is compiled from Nim, and I found the source code, and the questions.

For many questions, the answer depends on the specific use, and/or will be something other than what is listed there. (For example, debugging will involve all of the four things that are listed there.)

I am also not so sure that the quiz describes the programming philosophy very well, but this is a general feature of these kind of quiz anyways.

I seem to disagree with many modern programmers about programming philosophy, but some I seem to have more agreement with some people who do some things in the older ways (although not completely).

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#19

Post by h4ch1 »

You prefer elegant, high-level solutions that are intuitive and accessible to other developers. You likely favor functional programming, clear abstractions, and code that reads like prose.

Abstract ↔ Concrete: +7 Abstract Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +11 Human-Friendly

Spot on I'd say; code is the best documentation unless I'm writing some bespoke mathematical algorithms, even then I try to offset it by writing and using clear variables/function names.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#20

Post by arjonagelhout »

Waterluvian wrote: post #11

I tried to finish this quiz but just can’t. Every question I got was a very big, “it depends on context…” “Do you prefer strong static or dynamic or a mix?” Well… are we teaching 9th graders an intro to coding, writing a quick script to answer a bespoke data question, or writing a data processing library? “On algorithms I focus on…” Okay, well… do we care about performance? Where is it running? How often will it run?…

I have the same issue. For many of the questions my answer is "all of the above, but A in context A, B in context B, etc.". Many are also not mutually exclusive.

Take this example: "When debugging I typically:"

> Write tests to isolate the problem

In the case of math functions, or more primitive building blocks, writing tests can help ensure correctness of the underlying functions, to exclude them from the problem search.

> Reason about the code logically first

This is always useful.

> Use a debugger to step through code systematically

Useful when dealing with a larger codebase and the control flow is hard to follow. The call stack can give quick guidance over trying to manually decipher the control flow.

> Add print statements to understand data flow:

Useful when debugging continuous data streams or events, e.g. mouse input, where you don't want to interrupt the user interaction that needs to be debugged.

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