> "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.
Feels about right.
Also, I'd recommend NOT telling the test taker which dimensions they're getting scored on as it will affect the responses. For example, if you gave me a test telling me that you're gonna score me on Introversion-Extraversion and Neuroticism-Emotional Stability, then I may be more biased to answer questions to score me as an emotionally stable introvert since that's what I identify as.
Oh, and Abstract ↔ Concrete: 0 Neutral | Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +11 Human-Friendly
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 both of those. Debugging: do I use print statements, or a debugger, or logically think it through? Yes all of those. But if I arbitrarily said I use a debugger in a multiple choice test, I don’t think that tells you much about how I code!
I do - controversially - think some of the answers are naming bad practices. Like abstraction first is a bad idea - since you know the least about your problem before you start programming it up. Abstraction first inevitably bakes in whatever bad assumptions you walked in the door with into your code. Better to code something - anything - up and use what you learned in the process to iterate on your software architecture decisions. I also generally hate modern OO and these days I prefer static types over dynamic types.
But yeah. Interesting questions! Thanks for putting this together.
I got very close to centre also, just slightly on the "concrete" and "human friendly" sides. But who wouldn't want to be concrete or human-friendly?
If you had shown me the diagram only, and asked me to position myself on it I would have placed myself on the middle of the perimeter of the second quadrant (135 degrees along the circumference), to indicate that I strongly prefer human friendly and concrete over computer friendly and abstract respectively.
And even as I was answering the questions I felt that I was leaning heavily towards that, with answers like starting simple, documenting well and so on.
I think some of the pull in the opposite direction comes down to interpretation as well.
And actually I see in the repo for the quiz there is a JSON file that contains scores for each question that one could have a look at to see if the answers are scored the same way that you think they would be.
For people who haven’t done the quiz yet, don’t look at the json file until after taking the quiz.
https://github.com/treeform/devcompas/blob/master/questions....
abstract: min=-25, max=38
human: min=-27, max=33
Which means that the circle diagram showing the result can give a bit of wrong impression imo.
Edit to add: In a frequency plot you can see also specifically how the possible score additions and subtractions are a bit unevenly distributed
Abstract frequencies (ASCII bar chart)
-2: ########## 6
-1: ############################## 18
0: ######################################## 24
1: #################### 12
2: ################################# 20
---------+---------+---------+---------+
(max = 24)
Human frequencies (ASCII bar chart)
-2: ################## 11
-1: ##################### 13
0: ######################################## 25
1: ########################### 17
2: ###################### 14
---------+---------+---------+---------+
(max = 25)
-2: 6, -1: 18, 0: 24, 1: 12, 2: 20
-2: 11, -1: 13, 0: 25, 1: 17, 2: 14I thought the imperative vs object oriented was strange, since they are the same thing.
They’re all imperative programs though. “OO vs Imperative” isn’t the right name for that design choice.
C++ and Java are imperative languages because functions are expressed as a list of imperative statements. But there’s nothing inherently imperative about structs and classes. Or any of the concepts of OO. You could have encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism in a functional language just fine if you wanted to. Haskell fits the bill already - well, depending on your definition of OO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrY6xrWp3Gs To summarize: Block scope is procedural. Wrapping that up in other abstractions like objects, which are fancy closures, eventually ends up in OO.
When talking about OO, people often conflate the data design with the program abstractions. Ofc you program differently in languages that have dedicated data structures and idioms around domain driven design^1, which take advantage of imperative execution within those mechanisms as well.
eg Java Spring - Spring has a lifecycle. It's imperative. Beans and other annotations have a lifecycle. It's also imperative.
^1 Domain driven design is still the norm and any efficiency observed from circumventing (or ignoring) the design is considered novel, which should inform the industry that there might be a better way. Good enough wins out again.
I think both are appropriate for well-scoped library code. But application code is just not well defined enough in most circumstances to get any benefit from it. But this quiz didn’t ask that and I suspect this would swing the score quite strongly.
Maybe the message is that none of us are extremists, because we care? I like it
“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.
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.
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.
Not the OP, but what would be the point to that? In any practical scenario there is always context, isnt it? I guess I don't quite get what we are trying to measure here.
In this case, one tacit assumption is that a given developer will typically adopt just one of these approaches. Another is that they can meaningfully and objectively be ordered along either of the axes purportedly being measured.
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 work with when given the choice.
I could easily answer that. I love solving the kinds of problems that call for strong static typing and careful specifications and unit testing. I also love the opportunity to “whip up a script” in what feels like a hacker speedrun.
I absolutely adore teaching newcomers intro to programming. Holy crap the glimmer in their eyes when they grok what this opens them up to… I skip past all the “computer science” and jump into making a small game and sharing it with friends via web. Or even just Autohotkey to show them how they can become a hacker of their own computer habits.
it is not a DSA test, but more like intuition test
Abstract ↔ Concrete: -13 Concrete Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +7 Human-Friendly
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 """
That is an extremely telltale signature. Put another way, if your assertion is right, then a simple 5 minute quiz like this should be enough to rule out people who are claiming to be senior, but who actually arrive at extreme answers. A 5 minute quiz like that would be worth tens of millions in improving hiring practices.
So either we're all leaving millions of the floor by not building a company around this, stat, or your assertion is just wrong. There can indeed be senior engineers who are nonetheless very principled even in low-context situations.
> 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 intere
Which is basically all that this test is good for. If you're not somewhere around the center, you're either a junior dev or not a very good dev.
I can point you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_table if you need empirical evidence that people sometimes actually think claims through sometimes for a few minutes. Otherwise I'm not sure what you're asking for.
There is one question here, and you have failed to address it.
"""
When debugging, I typically:
* Write tests to isolate the problem
* Reason about the code logically first
* Add print statements to understand data flow
* Use a debugger to step through code systematically
"""
and I typically do all 4 of those things. If I don't understand the dataflow yet, I'll start with either print statements or the debugger to understand that. If it's code where I already understand the dataflow, and I can reason about the code already, I'll do that. Otherwise I might first write tests to help me reason about the code. But I generally do all of these things and the order depends on my specific problem.
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
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: +9 Human-Friendly
Abstract ↔ Concrete: +4 Abstract Human ↔ Computer Friendly:+7 Human-Friendly
I like "code that reads like prose" :-)
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).
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.
We write code for machines. For humans we write human-readble media and formats; like document, diagrams, specifications, and ect...
> 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.
At first I was frustrated that the answers were very much “it depends”, but then I decided that (a) this is low stakes, (b) just pick the closest one as if someone held a gun to your head. End result was fine.
Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +21 Human-Friendly
Pretty much what I expected. Probably also depends on what kind of code you write. I assume somebody who writes kernel drivers would lean more towards computer friendly.
Abstract/Human-Friendly: "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/Computer-Friendly: "You appreciate mathematical elegance and optimal solutions. You probably enjoy languages with powerful type systems, formal methods, and code that leverages compiler optimizations."
Concrete/Human-Friendly: "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."
Concrete/Computer-Friendly: "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."
This string is also present in the source code, but it doesn't appear possible to trigger its display: "You have a balanced approach to programming, adapting your style based on the specific requirements of each situation."
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.
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.)
Do you prefer to use:
1. Capital letters
2. Lower-case letters
3. Numbers
4. The characters required for the text I am writing to be correct and legible
The graph is would be better plotted with the radius representing standard-deviation or some other measure rather than the raw score.
> pefixes and suffixes
the first word should probably be "prefixes"
And isn't being human friendly while building performant enough solutions the whole point of code? If we didn't need the humans, we'd do machine code.
At most questions, my answers would have been: "all of the above" or "it depends on the context"
> Measure first, optimize bottlenecks only
> Profile and optimize the critical path
Profiling is Measuring, and the "critical path" is the bottleneck.
But also, it's not really reasonable to map all these opinions onto two axes
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.
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
> When refactoring code, I prioritize:
> - Reducing complexity and coupling
> - Improving readability and maintainability
> - Optimizing performance and resource usage
> - Extracting reusable abstractions
Each refactoring has some goal, some driver behind it. It could be slow performance, unmaintenable mess, high coupling, too much duplication etc... Choosing a single answers makes no sense from a programming point of view. And this is the case most questions I have seen so far on the site.
EDIT: After finishing and seeing, I think I understand it a little better why was it structured like this. If you are open to do things differently, your answers probably won't weigh in any one direction in aggregate. But if you have certain biases, you might be leaning towards choosing similar answers that shows up in the end.
Your Programming Philosophy
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: 0 Neutral Human ↔ Computer Friendly: +6 Human-Friendly
The compass is almost in the middle, just a little up from center towards human friendly. That's fine, since most code you write is for other humans to read, the compiler is writing for the machine, only in critical perf sensitive paths you write for computer-first... The rest was mostly neutral, because what I wrote in the parent, it depends on the situation and it can go either way depending on the project.
How much tech debt is acceptable?
Do you have moral obligation to any code you produce?
What are your side projects?
If your code results in a death, who is responsible?
An other question had the option about optimizing for collaboration, and I think apart for purely personal stuff that your write like private poetry, that should always be criteria number one.
Call this a Myers-Briggs for programming style?
So many "best practices" are truly repugnant, like XML, microservices, TDD, Design patterns, DRY, OOP, functional programming, codes of conduct, 75% of "devops"
Many of us found those things repugnant at the time and were lambasted for being a contrarian. Now in hindsight people are coming around. We're the ones who care about the machine, prefer short variable names, write necessary tests and do printf debugging. We just want to build stuff that is correct and elegant. Just leave us be.
I don't think any trend is good enough to apply to everyone in the trade. It would be better to divide up into factions so you can find communities that suit your preference.
I was just born this way.
I have my own love/hate relationship with many of the things you list and I currently share many of your preferences. However I didn't always see things that way. Best practices start as informal approaches to address the problems of the day. After achieving a modicum of success they'll get enshrined by others as languages, features and cultural artifacts giving rise to new problems.
I find the broad tendency of unthinking "best practicification" more troubling than any particular "best practice".
Take OOP as an example. Stroustrup's early C++ presentations argued OOP meant more than "slow graphics" since people at the time were struggling to build graphical user interfaces for machines without much memory. The idea of melding state and behavior made it easier at the time to build complex user interfaces with imperative languages. But OOP isn't a silver bullet. Many attempts to apply the OOP ideas to other domains met with failure.
Fortunately we now have more powerful machines and better tools available to us.
We must still be mindful of hertz, milliseconds , watts, bytes, airtime , watt-hours, thermals
E.g. the debugging question: I use all of those methods to some degree. But I "think logically about the code" (or whatever that choice was) nearly 100% of the time, so I felt compelled to pick that one even though I didn't feel like it represented me all that well.
I'm +3 Abstract, +2 Human-Friendly - https://pastebin.com/Y7t4ys3J
At the end I would have liked to see how each answer contributed to the final score, perhaps plotted on the final graph.
It would also be interesting to see how many others took the test and how my answers compared to theirs.
¹- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
A) I just do what's best
B) Here's what I think my professor wants to hear
C) Here's a non-sequitur soundbite I pulled from LinkedIn (not always meaningfully distinguishable from B)
D) I write enterprise Java, it's too late for me
I still finished it and ended up somewhere slam dunk in the middle, and I even avoided the A) options
austin-cheney•5mo ago
Human ↔ Computer Friendly: -5 Computer-Friendly