Blog/A Programmer's Sorting Hat
“Hagrid,” Harry said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a programmer.”
To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.
“Not a programmer, eh? Never made things happen around computers when you were angry, bored or excited?”
Harry looked into the fire. Now that he thought about it… when he bypassed the school's internet restrictions to play games on the library computer… when he wrote a script to automate his tedious data input ICT homework… when he found his science teacher's mark scheme for the Christmas exam on the intranet. And the last time Dudley copy-pasted his maths homework and printed it out, hadn't it come out in Wingdings?
“You'll be whisked away to a magical place of learning with a state of the art computer lab.” said Hagrid, beaming. “However, we shan't need much to learn the fundamentals.”
Hagrid withdrew some writing utensils from his tattered overcoat. He scrawled the word ‘atom’ on a piece of parchment, narrating as he wrote.
“Now, see this sequence of characters I have written… is it true that it is an atom? 1
The Sorting Hat Quiz
Have you ever wondered which of the four great magical houses of Hogwarts you would have belonged to? Take this magical quiz to find out!
Scenario I
You have just received the worksheet for a programming homework. It is expected to take a day to complete.
Scenario II
You have just received a programming assignment. It is expected to take a week to complete.
Scenario III
You have just received the assignment for a group software development project. It is expected to take a month to complete.
Scenario IV
You are choosing your individual project assignment, which is expected to take a few months to complete.
Sort!
Result
Congratulations, you are a Gryffindor!
You enjoy programming as a creative tool and as a means of expressing your individuality. It is important for you to be recognised in your work. You may enjoy making games, founding a startup or creating an ambitious open source project.
Other famous Gryffindors: Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds
Congratulations, you are a Slytherin!
You see programming as a tool to solve specific problems in your domain, or to scratch a personal itch. Perhaps you were trained as an engineer or scientist, but you may also enjoy being a data scientist, a systems engineer or working in security.
Other famous Slytherins: Julian Assange, Andrew Ng
Congratulations, you are a Hufflepuff!
You enjoy working with others, establishing conventions and development practices in order to produce maintainable, bug-free software. You may enjoy being an enterprise developer, a software architect, or managing a development team.
Other famous Hufflepuffs: Robert Martin, the Gang of Four
Congratulations, you are a Ravenclaw!
You enjoy the theoretical side of programming such as the pondering the nature of computation, type systems, and algorithm design. You may enjoy computer science research in academia, or inventing and implementing your own algorithms or programming languages.
Other famous Ravenclaws: John McCarthy, Edsger Dijkstra
Roads not taken:
Retake Quiz
Footnotes
The Little Schemer is Hagrid's favourite book