Dev Compass – Programming Philosophy Quiz

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.

Yeah I like the idea but the questions need serious work. I only got through a few before giving up because they're ambiguous or I want to say yes to multiple things. E.g. the question about comments - they're basically all true. Or the question about architecture - it's basically impossible to answer.

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 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.)

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 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.

    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: 14

This quiz is a good reminder of why I support ranked choice voting.

These appear to be the possible programming philosophy descriptions (found by doing a keyword search in main.js)

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."

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.

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

This was fun!

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

-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.

If the author is reading

> pefixes and suffixes

the first word should probably be "prefixes"

I got bored after the 3rd or 4th question. It's like they were all tricks.

I'm not sure these are independent variables. I mostly care about concrete code or abstractions as a way to make the code more human friendly.

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.

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).

This was fun, and the conclusion was pretty good (slight preference for human-friendly and concrete).

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.

I would love to see how this overlaps with folks' preferred languages, frameworks, and tools.

Abstract ↔ Concrete: -3 Concrete

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.

Cool. I feel right in the center. Where's my job offer?

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.

We write code for machines. For humans we write human-readble media and formats; like document, diagrams, specifications, and ect...

I'm not even sure what the options for the first question mean...

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" :-)

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.

Seeing Treeform here immediately made me think of Nim, and lo-and behold that's what the Javascript is generated from, cool!

I ended right in the center:

> 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.

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).

Abstract ↔ Concrete: -2 Concrete

Human ↔ Computer Friendly: -5 Computer-Friendly

Ooh, fun, a FizzBuzzFeed quiz!

I got outer bull. 25. Is that good?

-1 concrete, +16 human friendly.

Feels about right.

Bad. It is annoying to do 20 questions quiz. The author is a bad developer.

+17 human+friendly, I guess I don't care what computers think lol.

0 concrete +1 human centered. Just put the code in the bag I guess.