Programmer's Colorful Personality Traits

Previously, we paid little attention to personal character issues in software development. Since the publication of Edsger Dijkstra's landmark article "Program Development is a Human Activity" in 1965, programmer personality has been recognized as a legitimate and productive study area. Topics such as "Psychology in Computer Programming" and "Research Experiments on Programmers' Behavior" are common in the computer field.

Software teams need diversity not only in skills, experience, and knowledge. They need the optimal balance of personalities to effectively build software, especially in our rapidly changing technological, business, and social worlds. In this article, we will analyze the different personality traits of programmers through the different colors.

Red – Glory of programmers

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Red is the most vital color and is generally considered to symbolize enthusiasm, confidence, and sexiness. It is a color full of energy. The programmer's love for programming is as red, and passion surges.

Programming is a technology and art, and programmers are known as "the power to change the world." Glory is a natural expression of being proud of one's profession from the heart. Compared with financial superiority, the crushing and surpassing of IQ and knowledge, recognizing technical strength can make programmers feel happier, so the glory of programmers comes from the confidence in IQ and problem-solving ability.

Programming technology requires programmers to have strict logical thinking and not look at problems emotionally and intuitively. Technology is developing and updating very quickly, and the breadth and depth of its knowledge are even higher in the eyes, more in the drill, in the front, and behind. This allows programmers to continue to learn and make continuous progress. Programming is art with solid skills, which can fully stimulate the divergent thinking of programmers. Each programmer can play according to their imagination. At the same time, the beauty of the art of programming is reflected in the fact that every programmer knows how to share, share their ideas, share their code, and share the joy of their success.

Last but not least, great programmers are very passionate about technology. Again, that's not a skill that just came to them. Maybe they liked tinkering when they were children. Or they were the kids that used to love finding ways around the school computer security system. Whatever the roots of the trait, loving technology often leads to acquiring a deep understanding of it. "Doing what you love" is more than just a saying for successful programmers.

Orange - Logic of programmers

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Orange is a symbol of prosperity and pride and represents warmth. This color can create a fun atmosphere. Orange is also a neutral color, symbolizing a good harvest and providing information about the real world.

Logic, derived from the Classical Greek logos, originally meant "word" or "speech" (by extension "thinking" or "reasoning"). Logos is the first philosophical concept introduced by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Ancient Greek philosophy started from exploring the origin of the world, from Thales' water origin (figurative), that water is the source of all things, to Heraclitus. Laklitus' logos (abstract), and then Plato's theory of ideas, completed the development of natural philosophy to metaphysics. In short, logos refers to all laws that can be understood and logically refers to the laws and rules of thinking.

Logical thinking is the stage of rational human cognition, in which people use concepts, judgments, reasoning, and other thinking types to reflect the nature and laws of things. Programming can often seem chaotic, but it’s all about understanding and implementing the internal logic of whatever language programmers are working with. Handling a problem logically analytically makes a programmer worth their weight in gold. Someone once said that people with good logical thinking are not necessarily good programmers, and people with wrong logical thinking must be bad programmers!

In their daily work, programmers need to understand various business needs and respond to facts and data requirements with vast information, requiring specific logical thinking skills. It can be said that logical thinking is the programmer's soul because every line of code embodies the programmer's logic.

Yellow - Curiosity of programmer

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It symbolizes sunshine, light, and optimism. Yellow covers a positive spectrum: from logic and facts at one end to dreams, visions, and hopes at the other. This personality trait is often accompanied by active exploration and great creativity.

The positive evaluation and construction aspects represented by yellow are integral to programmer creativity, and here, they can be reduced to programmer curiosity. Curiosity is a constructive and inspiring way of thinking. In the process of becoming a senior programmer, technical curiosity is essential. Specific characteristics of the technological environment change every 5 to 10 years. If programmers fail to keep up with this change, they face the threat of being left behind. Suppose a programmer does not have a technically curious mind. In that case, he will not be motivated enough to insist on learning the more comprehensive and in-depth knowledge necessary for successful coders.

The programmer's curiosity has something in common with signing up for lifelong learning – it's about being driven and passionate about their job. But while learning requires systematic commitment, being curious is all about that initial spark. Even if things work after the first try, a good programmer still asks themselves why that is. A good programmer always strives to understand how his work functions because that is how to make it better.

Green - Lively heart of programmers

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Green represents energy, vegetation, and growth of all things. A green way of working requires people to set aside time to generate new ideas.

A programmer's daily job is to deal with an endless pile of code, so they will inevitably be bored and distracted while working, which will lead to work mistakes. At this time, you need a lively attitude to solve the daily tedious work. Programmers need to constantly develop new ideas, listing different options and routes, both existing routes and new ones that no one takes. The liveliness of programmers prompts them to occasionally question frameworks, change layers, and be prepared to generate alternatives within specific layers.

Contrary to the rigid, logic-driven image that programmers conjure in the popular imagination, the reality of great programmers is that they’re some of the lively people in the world. Studies have confirmed that lively has the strongest correlation to the programming ability of any other personality trait. After all, the essential task of programmers is to find new ways to solve problems via the code they dream up, and what could be a more creative and Lively endeavor than that?

In the real world, the best programmers always surprise the people they work with by taking a unique approach to the problems they’re tasked with solving or by coming at every issue from a different angle than everyone else.

Cyan – Lazy heart of programmers

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LarryWall, the inventor of the Perl language, has a classic narrative: good programmers should have three virtues: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

Laziness is a quality that makes programmers spend a lot of effort to avoid excessive energy consumption, urging them to write programs that save energy. Others can make good use of them, and programmers will write perfect programs. Documentation so that no one else comes to ask questions.

Only lazy programmers will not write large blocks of redundant code. They will come up with various ways to avoid this redundant code situation. For example, a certain degree of laziness is beneficial to solve redundant code situations through refined design patterns, highly abstract modules, easy-to-use interfaces, and highly configurable base platforms.

Blue - Perfect heart of programmer

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Blue, the color of the sky above all, symbolizes control. We also think of detachment, calmness, and control when mentioning blue. The way of thinking of human beings is often aimless. Programmers tend to use blue architecture, planning for everything that happens over time.

Blue symbolizes concentration. During the programming process, programmers ask the right questions and follow the established program design step by step. The perfect heart of the programmer will prompt him to summarize the previous situation and the achievements that have been achieved. It is precisely due to the perfect heart of the programmer that a seemingly endless product is organized and shaped.

Programmers must have the ability to pay attention to details. Due to the complexities involved, programming is not a task for people who don’t sweat the small stuff. It is instead an exercise in paying attention to the minor details. That’s because it’s straightforward to let minor coding errors snowball into much more significant issues, and not all of them will be obvious until the programmer try the program and get an unexpected result.

Purple - Paranoia of programmer

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Purple gives people the feeling of retreating and shrinking, and with the low brightness of purple, it will give people a sense of distance. For many people, paranoia represents stubbornness, unreasonableness, and perfectionism. Paranoia points out that something is not in line with our resources, policies, ethics, values. However, on the other hand, paranoia represents persistence, persistence, and attitude. This is undoubtedly a work ethic to admire in today's ever-changing internet. Therefore, the paranoia of people is best described as purple. Sometimes, the paranoia of character is not a defect, but an attitude, including people and things.

Programmers can sometimes be difficult to accept because they have an extreme paranoia about the development tools or methods, giving people a very stubborn feeling. But Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear Software, makes the opposite point: Paranoia in software development is a good thing.

When paranoid programmers make Internet products, they try to make them to the extreme, expecting them to be perfect. Although this idea is not realistic, the idea itself is correct. For products, we should all pursue the ultimate and look forward to the vision of perfection. This is one of the driving forces for improving and innovating products. Making Internet products is a continuous process. Every slight improvement, every small innovation, is a giant leap for the product. Paranoiacs with obsessive-compulsive disorder can start from the details and make products continue to innovate on a small scale. If there are 100 such meaningful small innovations, it is enough to create an ultimate product and enough to determine the future value of your product.

Furthermore, most software development methodologies promote a philosophy or mindset. This is evident in many groups who believe in a particular programming language. Some software startup teams or companies take some "well-known" corporate culture like a bible. You may not agree with some of their essential points, but a shared belief brings a team closer together.

Conclusion:

Programming is really about solving problems. It requires invention, creativity, and inspiration. For programmers, both the strict constraints of digital computer systems and the development of rich and flexible human thinking will demonstrate the power of both and deeply expose their flaws. The different personalities of the programmers behind each color will directly affect their ability to write computer programs.