Your personality says a lot about you and how you react to the world. Several months back I found a programmer personality test that will describe how you like to program. Today, I decided to take it again to see how I’ve changed.
Originally I took it along with all the other programmers where I worked, and the results were valid. The guy who loved writing tight data structures in C was a “Low Level” programmer and the one who stringed 10 function calls on a single line to save space ended up being “Conservative”.
Both times, I came up as DHSB. Not a bad type for a freelance programmer:
- Doer – I would rather get the general idea of a feature and then dig into the code. Most plans change as you start implementing.
- High level – I love Ruby and she loves me. I’ve been flirting with Common Lisp just to learn how it’s macros work.
- Solo situation – I prefer to work on a solution by myself or with a few people. I’ve seen too many bad ideas result from large meetings.
- Liberal – To help support my High level, I try to build up abstractions in my code to make it easier on myself and my team. Since these are usually used by many people, I try to be extra clear so to prevent misunderstandings later.
I had my friend Peter Chester take it and he said this would be a good way to help decide who should work on a specific project. Got a prototype? You will want a Doer. Need an embedded driver for a cell phone? Low level is for you. Need a n-tier system? You will want a Team.
What personality type are you? Does it fit you?
Eric
I came out as DHSB too. Though I don’t know how reliable the test would be, given how long its been since I did anything with a real programming language.
Hey Eric,
I did this test back in june, and got DHSC as a result. Same as you guys but with the last letter saying:
“You are a Conservative programmer.
The less code you write, the less chance there is of it containing a bug. You write short and to the point code that gets the job done efficiently.”
http://judo.tumblr.com/post/4377942
I think this test is one of the most reliable out there. Well, I don’t have any data to back this thought up, but at least my results match my preferences perfectly, Doer and Solo being the most important ones.
Does anyone really need to take a test to know whether they like programming device drivers? Whether they like to program alone or in a group? Whether they’re heavy commenters or the lean-and-mean type?
Plus, there were at least three questions where I strongly disagreed with both answers. :)
///ark
Joshua: I think it applies to design as well, both skills require critical thinking and creativity.
Jarkko: The Doer and Solo are my most important traits also.
Mark: If we look at the results for right now, it’s pretty oblivous. But what if we look back, say 2 years ago. Have we changed since then?
I was looking for a third answer on some also but I think the author left it out to keep the test simple. I would be interested to know what questions you disagreed with.
Eric
Looking back over the test, I suppose in most cases I too would have liked a third answer. The answers were just too extreme, so I was forced to choose a response that “bad” programmers would also choose. For example, I think both “shutting the door and the rest of the world out” AND “sharing a desk with a peer and having group meetings often” are terrible ways to program.
///ark