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Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
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Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#52I 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’m that way with personality tests haha but this one i screwed down:
Abstract ↔ Concrete: -13 Concrete Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +7 Human-Friendly
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#53I suspect this test gives central values to many test-takers because the internal consistency of the questions has not been verified.
Anyone can come up with ten questions and claim "these measure a programmer's fondness for abstraction". Unfortunately, we cannot verify this claim. What we can do is check statistically if the answers to the ten questions correlate strongly enough that we think they measure the same thing, whatever that is.
This involves a trial run of the quiz followed by statistics such as Cronbach's alpha and principal componoment analysis. Often one finds that the questions do not measure the same thing at all! It is difficult to come up with a set of internally consistent questions.
When we add together inconsistent questions (as is done here to get the final score), we don't get stronger signal: the noise from the uncorrelated questions cancels out and almost everyone gets a result near zero.
I know OP is not the author, but if the author reads this: if you're lucky, the data from this audience mey reveal a subset of two or three questions per dimension that are internally consistent. Use only those in the quiz going forward! Then you can trial more questions one at a time and keep only those that are consistent with the first set. (Is this not p-hacking? Yes but in this context who cares.)
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I forget who said it, but "I don't truly understand a program until the 6th time I've written it."
That's such a good quote. I can't find it anywhere, so I'll attribute it to you.
I can't find it, but believe Joe Armstrong said something along those lines (but I think his number was ten).
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#55I 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?…
"it depends on context" is a personality trait
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#56If the author is reading
> pefixes and suffixes
the first word should probably be "prefixes"
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#57Cool. I feel right in the center. Where's my job offer?
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#58I 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?…
The "it depends" instinct is actually the hallmark of an experienced engineer - context-awareness is precisely what separates dogmatic programming from effective problem-solving.
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#59I got bored after the 3rd or 4th question. It's like they were all tricks.
That's not how I saw it. They're very global, but relevant stances, although very much focused on beginning a new, small to medium sized project.
I ended up slightly Hitchcock (North by North West) of the center (-3, + 12). It's true I'm rather practical, but other people in here call themselves opinionated and end up near the center as well. So perhaps not tricks, but rather too broad/shallow for the measure it takes? Or perhaps the mapping from question to score is too simple.
Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz
#60-11 concrete, +14 human friendly lol. > "You value clarity and directness in code. You prefer explicit, step-by-step solutions that are easy to understand and debug, even if they require more lines of code" Sounds about right.
More concrete/less human friendly, but same message. And I couldn't have summed up my own philosophy towards code better, to be honest.