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Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

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Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#71

Post by fuzztester »

IgorPartola wrote: post #39
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 took it as “when working in the kinds of things things I prefer to work on using my preferred tools.” For example, I prefer a mix of static and dynamic typing. Even for performance optimization where technically I do all four of the options, trying to write performant code from the start is what I prefer to do when possible. This isn’t about the right tool for the job as much as what kinds of tools to you prefer to…

yes, the mutually exclusive answers (radio buttons) are a quiz smell. they could have used a mix of radio buttons and check boxes, per question, as appropriate, i.e. check boxes for questions where more than one answer is applicable, and radio buttons for the rest.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#73

Post by eterm »

kqr wrote: post #53

I 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 t…

The graph also seems broken, because I got +2 absract, +10 human-friendly but when plotted, the +10 appeared near the axis anyway.

The graph is would be better plotted with the radius representing standard-deviation or some other measure rather than the raw score.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#74

Post by thierrydamiba »

teapot7 wrote: post #32
thierrydamiba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the fact that the answer isn’t easy a feature or bug?

Oh a bug, surely. How is the quiz supposed to give you insights when it's unanswerable?

By forcing you to make a decision without context.

Similar to how when presented with the trolley problem some will ask many follow up questions about the individuals on each track, the train, etc.

That’s not the point.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#75

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

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?…

Avoiding questions just because it depends on context might be a valuable way to signal to other people that you're careful and considerate, and that definitely has value.

But quizzes like this are explicitly designed to be contextless. You're supposed to answer with your gut feeling, the first step in the random walk.

Someone who actually depends heavily on context and doesn't have a strong preference either way will answer quickly, and end up near the center on all dimensions of interest - that's where I landed:

""" 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. Abstract ↔ Concrete: -2 Concrete Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +5 Human-Friendly """

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#76

Post by userbinator »

You focus on efficiency and performance. You like to work close to the metal, optimize for speed and memory usage, and prefer direct control over system resources.

Seems about right, although I only won "computer friendly" by +1, and I suspect that's because I think "computer friendly" and "human friendly" are very close to the same thing. Code that's short and simple is as easy for computers to execute as it is for humans to read and understand. Although +10 on concrete shows just how much I hate (usually superfluous) abstraction.

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#77

Post by anonymoushn »

> You focus on efficiency and performance. You like to work close to the metal, optimize for speed and memory usage, and prefer direct control over system resources.

well, it's not wrong, but i feel like a lot of these questions are "too normative" in their framing. there is some stuff that i do because of the nature of my work, and some other stuff that other people should be enabled to do because of the nature of their work, and some other stuff that really sucks that nobody should be doing and is nonetheless quite popular

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#79

Post by anonymoushn »

eterm wrote: post #68

Could someone help me understand the difference between: > Measure first, optimize bottlenecks only And > Profile and optimize the critical path The second seems to be a re-statement of the first? Profiling is Measuring, and the "critical path" is the bottleneck.

This question in particular could use an answer about like "use an up-front design that will not prevent subsequent performance work", so it is sad that it has two similar answers.

But also, it's not really reasonable to map all these opinions onto two axes

Re: Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

#80

Post by arjonagelhout »

thierrydamiba wrote: post #28
arjonagelhout wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

Is the fact that the answer isn’t easy a feature or bug?

I think it’s a bug in getting a useful outcome, but it’s a feature in creating engagement with the post.
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