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in reply to Re^2: departing programming, what is the next best step?
in thread departing programming, what is the next best step?
I agree.
In fact, I believe that the profile for a good programmer and a good paralegal are parallel. If I'm not mistaken, the preferred MBTI scores are the same. (Meyers Briggs Type Indicator) |
Re^4: departing programming, what is the next best step?
by tilly (Archbishop) on Sep 02, 2004 at 00:01 UTC
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Sorry, but you seem to be mistaken. According to this chart, the personalities that go into programming are ISTP, ISTJ, INTP and INTJ. (The fact that the key attributes are IT is probably just coincidence...) The personalities that like being a paralegal are ISFJ, ISTP and ESTJ. So ISTPs could be attracted both to programming and paralegals, but most programmers likely would not like being a paralegal and vice versa.
But that personality test is not destiny. For instance I'm an ENTP. As the chart and my experience indicate, extroverts of any kind are rare in programming. But we do exist. (Incidentally I should note that extroverted geeks are truly sad creatures. We want to be social but are oh so incapable of doing it properly. As I can testify from experience, when random people look interested in dumps of technical information, it is from a sense of morbid fascination. It is similar to how people can't resist staring at car wrecks...) | [reply] |
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What's the emoticon for needs Chlorpromazine?
I believe thats
:-) ... :-( ... :-) ... :-(
-QM
--
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of
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[d/l] |
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The MBTI is not quite as simple as "a few context-free questions about adjectives".
I won't try to tell you anything, I'll just mention a fact: if you go to the length to make some statistics about distribution of personality types among professions you'll find that you can indeed make useful predictions based on the MBTI. (The same seems to be true for the distribution of zodiac signs among professions, btw; make of that what you will.)
Whether you believe the stated causality for this or not: the facts show that there is at least a correlation.
Makeshifts last the longest.
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so Tilly -
I am an ENTP too. I want to hear what you think of programming, what you like about it. Cause I am getting bored with programming. I'm wondering if you also find debugging painfully boring. Or finishing up projects. Or perhaps not. I'm curious to find out what kind of programming job you have, you know, pick at another ENTP's brain a bit.
--rachel
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Well I like mental puzzles, I like learning things, and I like feeling like I've helped people. I've been able to do these things as a programmer.
For me the key to not burning out is to get to know people throughout my organization. That gives me a social outlet. That also let's me find small things that I can change to make things better for people - which is generally good for them and makes my job more enjoyable. I also enjoy finding things that I can explain about how the system works which gives them a better idea of what they can and cannot easily do. (I like social interactions and answering questions. And on perlmonks I'm known for being social and answering questions. Hmmmm... ;-)
As a rule I don't like extended development. Which is unusual in a programmer. I don't like debugging, but nobody does. (Which is why I like finding ways to do things which will leave me with less debugging later.) I sometimes enjoy maintainance more than development simply because it gives me a lot of reasons to come into contact with end users, and concrete satisfaction in knowing that I've helped someone.
As for what I do, my current employer is http://www.rent.com. My boss is esh. I got the job through perrin. The programmers here do everything that needs doing at a company like this, and we're all pretty senior. Mostly it seems to involve mod_perl and high performance databases. (At the moment I'm avoiding building some fancy web reports. Despite my best efforts, they are nearly done.)
The least enjoyable work experience that I had was one where my boss tried to isolate me as much as possible on an extended development project. I was bored, boxed in, and seriously stir crazy. Luckily that boss got replace. Since then I've come to accept that while I do not work well with many small interruptions, but I need to deliberately take a certain amount of social time at work or else I'll go insane. But I have to ration out how much socializing I allow myself.
I'll be the first to admit that I could be a more productive programmer if I was less social. But that simply isn't in my nature. And even with that handicap, I'm still productive.
Now there are other things that I could do with my technical background and abilities. However none so far seems to be as interesting and rewarding as programming. But I don't have "programmer" written on my heart, and I doubt that I'll be a programmer forever. But I'll not leave just yet.
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Hmm... From the link you gave I see under
INTJ "Computer Programmer... Attorney... Judge"
ISTJ "Engineer... Legal Secretary... Computer Operator... Computer Programmer... Technical Writer... Chief Information Officer"
ISFJ "Computer Operator... Paralegal..."
INFJ "Information-Graphics Designer... Lawyer... Interpreter/Translator"
ISTP; INFP; INTP; etc...
Just about everywhere I see a techie type profession, I also see a legal type profession.
I realize that personality typeing is not pre-destination, but I do see that it can help a person think about their own personality and give some structure to that thinking; as well as help them consider where they might fit as opposed to blind groping.
My own experience with geometry and programming have let me think that I too might enjoy hacking law, because I see the similarities: a set (albeit changing) of conditions and corrolaries (axioms/ programming language/ precedents), and a set of problems to apply them to (proof/ requirements/ case).
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