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I wonder if personality has something to do with it. My guess is that language snobs are INTP, whereas Blub programmers are more INTJ. From the descriptions a
by rkts 18y ago
I wonder if personality has something to do with it. My guess is that language snobs are INTP, whereas Blub programmers are more INTJ. From the descriptions at http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html:
"INTPs value knowledge above all else. ... They hate to work on routine things - they would much prefer to build complex theoretical solutions, and leave the implementation of the system to others."
By contrast, "[an INTJ's] primary interest is not understanding a concept, but rather applying that concept in a useful way. Unlike the INTP, they do not follow an idea as far as they possibly can, seeking only to understand it fully. INTJs are driven to come to conclusions about ideas. Their need for closure and organization usually requires that they take some action."
Since INTPs are less motivated to action and "hate to work on routine things," they are driven to higher-level languages, because those languages help them focus on concepts instead of implementation details. But this means that the people using these languages get little done -- precisely because they are more interested in concepts than in implementation.
- wheels 18y agoYou didn't cary the abstraction far enough: programming languages are an implementation detail. An INTJ tends to find it Very Important That Things Are Done The Right Way Using The Correct Programming Language and would be more than happy to give you their reasons why. A stereotypical INTP doesn't care so much about the how, and in general tend to be less polarized on specific technologies.
- bootload 18y ago"... My guess is that language snobs are INTP, whereas Blub programmers are more INTJ ..." Do you really believe in the "psycho-babble" Myers-Briggs claims it tests? If you can show me any peer reviewed scientific studies that back the claims made by these tests I'd be more than happy to read them and judge for myself. Until then MBTI theories are as believable as any other pseudoscience.
- wheels 18y agoI think a lot of people put too much faith in Meyer-Briggs, but I think psychologists tend to use it more than anything as an estimation tool just to get an idea of where to start with someone they're not familiar with. They can also be useful for describing some common personality memes, but a lot of times people mistake the categorizations as being predictive rather than descriptive and that's where they tend to quickly get into psycho-babble territory.